Well, 'The Hessian', I'm glad you responded to my review and have written your own thoughts out. I hope you don't think my entire blog is offensive (just this review), as some of it is pretty positive. Also, I'm glad you enjoyed Every Time it Rains – it was certainly competently and professionally done, can't fault that, nor the response of the bulk of its audience.
But any review by any critic is entirely subjective, and your opinion will differ from mine. Fair enough.
"This piece, more than any other, celebrates the strength of character displayed
by the people of Hull in the face of great hardship and adversity."
Unfortunately, that's not what I was getting from the piece. Your response is entirely valid, but mine was different. What I was getting from the play was, as you quote, a "torrent of misery". Undeniably, much of the play is far from cheerful.
My review is one where I've tried to make the review feel (as much as I can) like the piece on stage. How well that succeeds is another question. But (and I agree with you here) Creed has injected humour into this play. There are definitely funny moments, and I believe this humour amid misery is a typical human response – and flippancy in the face of tragedy is what is in my review. In a way, that's the point behind what you take to be me commenting "glibly". You've mentioned "they also have better rows", and said that it's not informative or insightful. Perhaps not, but it follows a dash in a sentence, and as such is a little separate from the rest of that sentence ("a much more proactive, materialistic attitude (once the enormity of the situation has sunk in for Gary) – they also have better rows."), it's a casual, throwaway comment, a bit irrelevant and a bit frivolous – like most humour. We tend to use humour as a coping mechanism when life throws something horrible at us (for example, as a child, my response to hearing my nan had died was to laugh; if I laughed, I couldn't cry – though I cried soon after), every funeral I've been to has been full of off-colour jokes and black humour, partly to avoid the grief and the real reason the family has gathered in a graveyard. The humour and flippancy within Every Time it Rains (and, I hope, my review) go some way to demonstrating that point.
I've done something similar with my review of Confessions of a City Supporter, which is mentioned in this review. I don't know if you've seen it, but it's another Hull Truck play based in Hull. In it, the main character claims the play is for non-supporters, which I took to mean dirty non-Hullians like myself (from Wolverhampton, which takes a knock in the play – I was thrilled the place even got a mention outside of the Midlands!)...but it was actually all about the fans. I've no objection to that, but I felt lied to. So, my review has a lie in it, which I reveal at the end, rather like my realisation at the end of Confessions.... These are reviews aiming to convey my reaction to the reader.
You're right to say that the "painfully local...feel" comes from a local writer writing about local people and local events – and if you pick out the main parts of my review (rather than cherry-picking the less positive ones) you can see that I very much admire the work Hull Truck does in producing community-specific pieces of theatre. They excel at that. I've said it before and am happy to say so again:
"[Hull] Truck is very good at this sort of thing. Their shows consistently tap
into the currents of feeling in this community and distil that community onto
the stage. Every Time it Rains has five actors playing a stream of characters,
all in some way affected by The Flood. So it feels like there's a lot of them
onstage, and the almost constant flowing and shifting of characters creates a
real feel of community and of change."
My Confessions... review also has a section highlighting the interaction of Hull Truck's current Programme with the local community - and I hope such interaction continues. But - as an outsider - maybe that's why I struggle with some of their work. Good as it is, it is tailored to the locals, which doesn't include me. That's no one's fault, I just happen to be watching theatre outside of my native city. Big deal. But then, it's not an issue when I see theatre in Birmingham, Edinburgh, Scarborough, Newcastle, Coventry, York or London (which is perhaps a tribute to the Truck's dedication to community work). So, yes, Hull Truck's work does tend to "resonate with with the inhabitants of its surrounding areas", and is often of a "consistently high quality". I'm not denying that. But sometimes you can get a bit sick of hearing about Hull's problems.
Case in point: the audience were asked - at the start of Confessions... – to 'confess' to being City fans, then being told they were 'brave' for doing so. It was hardly brave, in a room full of City fans. Throughout, City fans were shown to be hard done to. Frequently in Every Time it Rains, Hull is shown to be hard done to.
Whatsonstage.com has an interview in which Michael Barnett Snr. says that "It’s the classic thing about Hull thinking of itself as the forgotten city"; Hull on the Hull Truck stage has almost given itself a victim mentality that it doesn't entirely warrant. Barnett then says of Hull, "during the War you couldn’t mention its name because of intelligence.” I suspect that was true of everywhere, not just Hull. I'm afraid they do come across as rather deserving of pity, “poor little Hull folk” as you've quoted me saying.
My comments aren't "dismissive" at all; they're based on much thought on the basis of at least two full-length Hull Truck plays. Also, my review doesn't go so far as to say that the literal people of Hull are actually ""celebrating...self-jubilant victimhood"". What it does stress is that the locals "almost seem to be celebrating it [victimisation], as they sink into self-jubilant victimhood" - not that they have sunk into it, but almost seem to be in the process of doing so. And that's just the onstage Hull, not the literal city.
No, you've a good point: I don't refer to character journeys. But then, for me as an audience member, it wasn't about individual characters. It was about the community in Hull. That's the central thing to this play. Again, "it feels like there's a lot of them [characters] onstage, and the almost constant flowing and shifting of characters creates a real feel of community and of change." As for "the atmospheric lighting, the seamless depiction of the different effects the floods had on the local community, and the gentle use of comedy" – there's only so much I'm willing to fit into a review before I feel it's too long and cumbersome. Especially if I think that something else is more important to a piece's overall effect than the staging, say. Like I've said, it was about the community and The Flood for me. The staging did its job, as did the lighting (though that had its more dubious moments (I concede the saving of the Renault Twingo was inspired)). I've already mentioned the "gentle use of comedy".
Unlike the comedy though, I can't agree that the piano music was gentle. Nor was it especially evocative, for me. It was another occasion where I – as an audience member - felt manipulated, as though I was being told "Now you should feel sad"...as if the untimely death of a young man related by the man who tried to save him wasn't enough. As if a father talking about his son's early death wasn't enough to convey a sense of loss and tragedy to me which - with Martin Barrass playing it – it emphatically was. The piano shouldn't have been needed.
But thank you for expressing what you think. Hopefully, you're less angry than when you posted your critique. I always think that if I'm willing to have my words printed and placed in a public domain, I should be willing to have my name alongside them and be willing to stand by what I've said.
Do let me know when you next see a Hull Truck show – or any show, really – and we can
compare notes, if I've seen it too.
Oh, and "disappointing"?
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