Review by Mark Fisher
Free-Fall
3 Mar 2006 in Dance & Drama
Brunton Theatre, Musselburgh, and touring until 8 April 2006
Free-Fall by 7:84 Theatre Company.
THE RIGHT to buy your own council house was one of the flagship policies of the Thatcher government. Like the privatisation of state industries, it aimed to turn the ordinary citizen into a player in the capitalist economy and to undermine the collectivist spirit from which national ownership had sprung.
Set 25 years later, Christopher Deans’ ‘Free-Fall’ aims to show that Margaret Thatcher’s famous remark that “there is no such thing as society,” was a self-fulfilling prophesy. His argument is that by encouraging people’s individualistic instincts, the prime minister turned them against each other and strained their sense of social cohesion.
At least, I think that’s what Deans is trying to say in this 7:84 production because, although the elements are all in place for a drama of political alienation, the drama itself doesn’t happen.
We find a financially successful accountant (Anita Vettesse) with “loadsamoney” values. We find an inarticulate delinquent (Paul Corrigan) capable only of violence. And we find an elderly couple (Dave Anderson and Hope Ross) being forced to leave their former council house because they haven’t been able to afford their mortgage repayments.
Most likely there is a thematic connection here – as there must be with the couple’s aid worker son (Gary McInnes), temporarily in Glasgow to help with the flit – but Deans never explains what it is.
Neither does he make clear why their situation is akin to the sky-diver killed when his parachute failed at a nearby air display. When nothing else is happening (which is quite often) the characters talk dreamily of this traumatic event, but never mention its relevance to the play and how they themselves might be in free-fall.
They are, after all, only moving house. True, it’s the end of the family home and, true, their rented replacement will be miserable in comparison, but their misery is only an inconvenience compared with the suffering of, say, the people their son is trying to help abroad.
It isn’t that there’s no reason to be angry at the sale of the national housing stock, it’s that Deans doesn’t set the dramatic stakes high enough to give compelling form to his argument.
You can tell how little there is at stake by the way the characters are forever drifting off the stage as if there’s nothing worth keeping them there.
Things aren’t helped by Lorenzo Mele’s decision to direct the play at a soporific pace, exacerbating the sense of aimlessness. It’s all as colourless as Colin Begg’s set, the lack of political fire and dramatic purpose leading to a dull and puzzling evening.
© Mark Fisher, 2006
