This was one of my favourites of this year's Festival, for various reasons. Apart from anything else, it gave us 'word geeks' a chance to show off and be a bit playful - some writing reviews using only univowels (chat, back, look, floor, that sort of thing), or not using the letter 'e' (quite a feat, Shutters). I chose to include the letter 'u' in every sentence, as it never occurs in Vowel Play.
It's a funny thing about words. We use them to communicate with each other – that's what they're for – and yet there are those of us that won't say certain words. That could mean deliberately avoiding swearing, or it could just be that some words don't sit easily in some mouths. How often do you hear chavs use words like 'presently', 'exponential' or 'gosh'? When did you last hear someone say 'cheery' or 'frenetic' out loud?
Dartington's Vowel Play takes this idea to a whole new level; each character is allowed to use only one vowel. From the off, it's a fascinating exploration of speech and writing technique. Not only is each of the four women on stage given a different style of talking (necessary because of the kind of words that they have available), but it's also a tough call for a writer to pull off half an hour of speech with such a specific rule.
A case in point is Carey Mackenzie's Hannah – using the vowel 'e' – who can't talk about herself as 'I' (because Jaz Woodcock-Stewart's Jess has that vowel), instead talks about other people, mainly her Greek lover, Elle [it's pronounced Ellie, but that can't be right, because Ellie's got an 'i' in it]. However, she sounds like a bad tape recording where some of the words have been missed out, because none of her verbs can have 'I' in front of them.
What happens with the removal of four vowels from a person's speech is that – immediately – they have to start thinking of new ways of saying things. It might sound like it's a terribly restrictive thing, loosing so many letters, but in fact what it actually does is force these four women into new means of expression. They often can't use what seems the most obvious way of saying something, because of a stray vowel that belongs to one of the others. You can see it most clearly when they're setting levels on the microphones. After Hannah has said 'Test', Billie Beckley's Kim has to find a word using 'a' instead of 'e'.
Another thing that becomes apparent very quickly is that these women can't communicate with each other in normal conversation. The rule they exist under makes vast swathes of the English language out of bounds to them – perhaps most significantly, the words 'communicate' and 'conversation' can't be pronounced, because they have more than one vowel. While this urgency for new expressions is the script's strength, it is also its weakness. These women can't use words like 'hope', 'friend', 'chance', 'phone', 'advice' and 'chocolate'. I don't think I'd want to live in a world without those things.
But is it ultimately – as Jess fears – a bit 'gimmicky'? While it may sound like a purely literary exercise for people who like words, Vowel Play also has its warm human heart in the four women who perch behind the microphones. This is a mode of writing that really doesn't work for dialogue, but gives great opportunities for monologues. There are several here, and it's difficult to fault any of them. They flit between touchingly sad and brazenly funny – with healthy doses of sex along the way.
So it's maybe a little bit gimmicky, but it handles its gimmick well, forcing language to change and adapt to each character every time their mouth is opened. That's what makes it interesting, and that's why it is a strong half hour of drama.
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