Theatre review: Vassa Zheleznova

Like a lot of bloggers I've been plugging the work of fringe ensemble The Faction for some years now, but recently they haven't half been making it hard to maintain that enthusiasm. There was last year's "leave 'em wanting less" season, of course, and now before Vassa Zheleznova even starts there's a virtually unusable programme costing £5: Inspired by the title character listening to the Shipping Forecast, the programme is an A2 sheet folded like a map, making opening it and finding any information a tricky business. The cost is because it includes the playtext, although whether you'd be able to read it in the correct order is a different story. And speaking of different stories, Emily Juniper has transposed Gorky's play from revolutionary Russia to Liverpool during the 1990s dockers' strike.

Theatre review: Richard III (The Faction / New Diorama)

Being the fourth centenary of his death this is likely to be another particularly Shakespeare-heavy year, but my first visit of the year is, as it often has been, to the Faction's annual residency at the New Diorama. Mark Leipacher directs a revised version of the company's first-ever production, Richard III, with the aptly-named Christopher York playing the title role. Opening with a dance-like fight scene, this is a young and powerful Dick, who we see being instrumental in getting York victory in the Wars of the Roses. The youngest of the brothers, though, he ends up several steps away from real power, and turns his easy brutality on his own family. With Edward IV (Richard Delaney) nearing death, Richard despatches with middle brother Clarence (Lachlan McCall) before starting a rumour that Edward's sons and heirs are illegitimate. Ruthlessly disposing of anyone who might object, he manoeuvres himself into position until he's being begged to take the crown for himself.

Theatre review: Joan of Arc

If Friedrich Schiller is Germany's answer to Shakespeare, then Joan of Arc must be his Henry V. It even features its own Welshman, and takes place soon after the end of Shakespeare's play, as the French start to take back the land and power lost to the English. It takes an unusual general to reverse their fortunes, though: With the Dauphin (Natasha Rickman) out of cash, and at odds with his half-brother Dunois (Christopher York) about how to take on the enemy, they're open to desperate measures, like the arrival of young country girl Joan (Kate Sawyer,) who claims to be a messenger of divine support for the French cause. Allowed to test her claim, Joan proves a canny military tactician, bringing the traitorous Duke of Burgundy (Christopher Hughes) back to the fold, and defeating the feared English general Talbot (Christopher Tester.)

Theatre review: The Talented Mr Ripley

When I first started following The Faction's work, it was with a highly physical, creative and pared-down (both in terms of production style and text) version of Macbeth. Over the years the visual, physical trademarks have remained, but Mark Leipacher's company seems to have developed a slavish devotion to the original text. This year's season opened with a Romeo and Juliet that suffered from its fear of editing out a single word, but this seems to now extend even to the company's own original writing: Leipacher adapts and directs Patricia Highsmith's novel The Talented Mr Ripley, a production with a lot of nice ideas and a stellar central performance; but a script that can't seem to accept that capturing a novel's every nuance isn't possible in a stage play. The adventures of Tom Ripley (Christopher Hughes) and their consequences therefore make for a disappointing evening.

Theatre review: Romeo and Juliet (The Faction / New Diorama)

An unusually Shakespeare-heavy start to the year continues with what's become something of a tradition: The Faction's rep season at the New Diorama, which usually includes one of the better-known Shakespeares. The fact that director Rachel Valentine Smith was on good form in the recent Reptember season made me a bit more optimistic than I would normally be about a play I've never liked: This year's rep opens with Romeo and Juliet. Two leading Verona families have been mortal enemies for generations, for reasons nobody seems to even remember. When the Capulets host a party, Romeo Montague's (Christopher York) friends convince him to crash, in the hope that he might get over his unrequited love for Rosaline. It works, but only because Romeo quickly falls for someone else instead - his enemy's only daughter, Juliet (Clare Latham.) And unlike Rosaline, she's actually noticed he's alive and feels the same way.

Theatre review: Reptember - Duende / Faust / The Rape of Lucrece

Last trip to the New Diorama for now, for three monologues to conclude the Reptember season in which The Faction showcase their actors and creatives. Kate Sawyer is one of the company's regular members who most often impresses me, and she and director Rachel Valentine Smith have come up with the most innovative of the nine pieces in terms of staging. Lorca's Duende is a lecture on the titular, indefinable Spanish word, something akin to "je ne sais quoi" or "the X factor" but with an inherent melancholy. Sawyer arrives on stage dressed like a clown¹ to deliver the lecture, but freezes on seeing the audience. In a solution reminiscent of Analog.Ue, she plays a tape of herself speaking the words, while acting out the beats, playing slides and music to help illustrate her points. Lorca's essay makes some interesting points about the awareness of life's transitory nature being a vital component of great art; Sawyer and Valentine Smith update it to include the unlikely despair in Kylie Minogue's "Better The Devil You Know" and reveal something of a crush on Nick Cave. It's playful and innovative but with touches of the Duende it discusses.

Theatre review: The Robbers

The Faction conclude their 2014 rep season with their pet playwright, Friedrich Schiller, and a tale of warring siblings. Handsome, charismatic Karl (Tom Radford) has got in with the wrong crowd but begs his father for forgiveness. Crippled, twisted younger brother Franz (Andrew Chevalier) wants the family wealth and titles for himself, so convinces their father to disinherit his brother instead. Believing himself damned by a father's curse, Karl agrees to lead his friends as they go from libertines to all-out gang of vicious robbers who lay waste to whole cities at a time and laugh in the face of the church. But when Karl learns of Franz's advances towards his beloved Amalia (Kate Sawyer,) he returns home for a showdown. Mark Leipacher directs his and Daniel Millar's translation of Schiller's The Robbers.

Theatre review: Thebes

I don't think I've seen The Faction tackle Greek Tragedy before - surprising really, as the importance of the Chorus would seemingly make it a good match for a company built around an ensemble. If they've neglected the genre before they make up for it by doing three in one: Gareth Jandrell has taken the various plays by Aeschylus and Sophocles dealing with noted motherfucker Oedipus and his legacy, and knitted them into a single epic history of Thebes. We begin with the city's king Oedipus (Lachlan McCall) at the height of his hubris, angrily demanding that the killer of his predecessor be found, and dismissing all the signs pointing to the fact that he himself is the killer. When it becomes obvious that he fulfilled the prophecy to kill his father and marry (or fuck, in this no-nonsense translation) his mother (Kate Sawyer,) he blinds himself and sets out to die - but in the process leaves a dangerous power vacuum in his city.

Theatre review: Hamlet (The Faction / New Diorama)

For the third year running ambitious fringe company The Faction return to the New Diorama to perform a three-play repertory season. Shakespeare is back on the menu this time around, indeed they've gone for the biggie: Hamlet is an interesting one for a company so heavily invested in ensemble playing to tackle, as it's weighted so much in the lead's favour. Although I didn't know when I booked which member of the company would take the title role, I correctly guessed that director Mark Leipacher would give it to Jonny McPherson, one of the stronger actors among the regulars, and the one with leading-man good looks. Though the performance space is small as is the cast, Leipacher has gone for a pretty epic sweep in a production that hasn't taken scissors to the text too liberally, and so despite maintaining a speedy pace it comes in at over three hours - but for the most part it uses the time well.

Theatre review: Blood Wedding

The Faction conclude their current rep season with Lorca's Blood Wedding, a play which, as the title suggests, is steeped in violence. But it turns out to be the interval that commits the bloodiest crime of the evening. The Mother (Anna-Maria Nabirye) is preparing her son, the Bridegroom (Andrew Chevalier) for his marriage, but the happy occasion is overshadowed by her feeling of dread, made worse when she discovers the Bride (Derval Mellett) has an ex-lover, Leonardo (Jonny McPherson.) It's not the suggestion of impurity in her future daughter-in-law that worries her so much as the man's identity: Although Leonardo himself was not involved, his family killed the Groom's father and brother, years ago. The marriage still goes ahead, but when Leonardo arrives at the wedding it's clear he and the Bride are still in love with each other, and tragedy inevitably follows.

Theatre review: Three Sisters

For their second show in the current rep season The Faction tackle Chekhov for the first time, and in keeping with Glum January it's perhaps his most despairrific play, Three Sisters. Stuck in a small, dull provincial town with only the local regiment to provide subjects for discussion, the Prosorov sisters and their brother are fed up, but sure that a return to Moscow and happiness isn't that far off. But Olga's (Kate Sawyer) teaching career takes over more of her life than she intended; Masha's (Derval Mellett) unhappy marriage is made more complicated by the arrival of a dashing new colonel; Irina's (Elizabeth Twells) romantic dreams of working life are crushed by the reality; and Andrei's (Lachlan McCall) marriage to local girl Natasha sees him sucked into a domestic role he never expected. Over the next couple of years the family's dreams are steadily crushed or simply fade away.

Theatre review: Mary Stuart

The main reason I've added the New Diorama to the list of theatres I keep an eye on is that the excellent Faction theatre company seem to have made it their base of operations. I skipped their first repertory season earlier in the year because I didn't want to add another venue to my collection when I have too many to keep up with already. But a second season has now been added for 2013, so it seemed silly to keep avoiding a company whose work I've always enjoyed in the past. In the meantime one of the productions from the first rep season has returned on its own prior to a small tour: The Faction have always expressed a particular interest in staging the works of Friedrich Schiller, and director Mark Leipacher has now turned to Mary Stuart, which he and Daniel Millar have written a new translation for. The story is the classic clash between two powerful women: Queen Elizabeth I, wanting to cement her power in the face of Catholic plots; and the figurehead for those rebels, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, currently imprisoned.