Last week two of our YNA Comms Team members, Katie and Ellie, headed to Stage Two at Norwich Theatre Royal to see ‘What Goes On In Front Of Closed Doors’ as part of their Creative Matters series. Here’s what they had to say about the performance…
Review by Ellie Robson:
What Goes On In Front Of Closed Doors, a solo play by actress Emma Bentley, featured in the February programme of ‘Creative Matters’ at Norwich Theatre Royal. For those unfamiliar with the programme, ‘Creative Matters’ is a series of events including performances, discussions, and workshops, that use creativity to focus on a different topic each month. February’s theme is Living With Homelessness.
Bentley’s play, What Goes On In Front Of Closed Doors, documents the experience of teenage homelessness, and covers a variety of incidents which may contribute to homelessness. The play unambiguously and unapologetically explores grief, mental health, and upbringing, and threads them together to represent the paths that can lead to someone no longer having a place to safely live. What Goes On In Front Of Closed Doors provided an outstanding social commentary which expanded my scope of understanding of the events that can lead to homelessness, and touchingly introduced the audience to what happens next when you really have no-one to turn to.
In addition to sharing an incredibly important and powerful message, Bentley’s performance was one that I couldn’t drag my eyes away from, and her talent was highlighted by the inventive visual choices made in the staging of the piece. Featuring immersive audio and a handheld camera that widened the story beyond its roots on the Stage Two floor, it is difficult to remember that Emma was a solo actress onstage. The stage felt full, and the narrative fully fleshed out, cleverly showing the audience that stories go far beyond the snippets that we are privy to in our daily lives.
As well as being an incredible piece of art, What Goes On In Front Of Closed Doors is something that has really stuck with me since leaving the Theatre Royal a week ago. I feel much more sympathetic to the experiences of those around me, whether they are in relation to homelessness or any other issue. Its impact has inspired me and gone far beyond Bentley’s engaging performance onstage, and I feel incredibly grateful that this piece was my first encounter with the ‘Creative Matters’ programme.
Review by Katie Stockton:
‘It’s amazing, how certain you can be about things going one way and then, a couple of decisions later, they end up somewhere completely different.’
What Goes on In Front of Closed Doors is a play written and performed by Emma Bentley. It has been touring following critical acclaim from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and played at Theatre’s Royal’s Stage Two on the 15th of February 2019.
As a piece, it tackles a multitude of issues and themes. Primarily, it is about a woman, Molly’s, descent into homelessness from a comfortable working-class lifestyle. It is also about how quick her movement from a state of stasis into an accelerating fall from security. It is about feminine issues to do with homelessness, and youth homelessness, and so much more. It is an all-encompassing piece that speaks to all corners of the issue it tackles, confidently and passionately.
What was most striking about Molly’s story was how fiercely intelligent her character was. She was funny, and witty and perceptive, and you grew to love her within moments. This wit and savviness stays with her throughout the text, of course, and is a resource for her when she finds herself homeless, but it still works as a surprising element in the piece. Bentley is portraying how there is no correlation between intelligence and homelessness – and is trying to fight against a stereotype. She is also making the audience feel vulnerable, as though we too are only a few mistakes away from being without a home. And we are, everyone is, and the lesson to be learnt from this vulnerability is to emphasise with those in more unfortunate situations than ourselves.
Emma Bentley gave a stunning performance. It was energetic, impassioned, and she had complete control over both the text and the stage. The performance she had to give must have been exhaustive – a one-woman-show dealing with violence, lust, emotional highs and lows, and ageing. All of which demanded a different side from her, and all of which she supplied. Bentley had the added task of acting, and creating an effective connection with, voices rather than other actors. Bentley was the only performer on stage for the duration, having conversations with voices from the sound design. But she handled this with ease, and in our mind’s eye, through both the dialogue and her acting, the conversational counterparts could be easily imagined and placed on stage.
This aspect of the performance – only having Molly portray her events – produced the effect of isolation; a theme explored in the play.
However, though isolating, the play did not suffer from a lack of dynamism. Through the use of and engagement with technology, the play had a sense of movement through different locations. The play opened with a video of a scene from Molly’s childhood playing on a computer screen – a scene that would come back to haunt her throughout the play. This was effective but was built on by the us of other videos and webcam that punctuated the performance. The highlight of this was when Molly put a webcam into a Chinese takeaway box from a supermarket – inconspicuous on the outside – but actually had a small model of Molly’s bedroom on the inside. As the webcam was moved about the little room by Molly, its image was projected on the back of the screen, so we felt in the room too. When Molly placed the webcam to face a ‘window’ in the box, and then opened the window, so she was looking in on the box and the audience could see, projected, her eye through the window onto the back wall, it was a moment of theatre magic. Such an inventive way of staging a play, and a clever get-around from having a text that demanded lots of different settings.
This piece was both important and entertaining, and executed with skill on both acting and writing fronts.
The Creative Matters series continues with James McDermott’s ‘Street Life’ this Wednesday 27th February. To find out more head to the Norwich Theatre Royal website.
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