The Long Way Home, Grapevine Magazine

As promised, Stagestruck this month reviews Charles Way's The Long Way Home, this year's Eastern Angles Spring Tour which, unusually for EA is not a new piece of work, nor is it set in East Anglia but rather in Greece.

A widow, Old Mother, making the arduous journey to the village of her birth meets and takes into her care a boy who acts like a dog - Dog Boy. Their journey, both literal and metaphorical, warps time and weaves questions of nature, the importance of names and the clash between the civilised and the barbarian, whilst they deal with friend and foe upon the road and Old Mother is harassed by the ghost of her dead husband.

The first thing that must be said about The Long Way Home is how good-looking it is. Perhaps surprisingly that's not actually a reference to the cast, fine examples of the human form that they undoubtedly are, it's the set I refer to. The design by Mika Handley is worth the ticket price alone. Now that sounds like a daft thing to say as you don't usually go to the theatre to admire the carpentry but I was entranced by the set before I'd even taken my seat and found myself wondering whether the performances would do it justice.

I'll return to the stage design in a moment but what of the performances? Well Long Way is a mythic tale which blends European folk tales and elements of Greek Theatre. Such narratives are best unfurled within an intimate atmosphere so that the audience is drawn in, almost as though the story were being told to them around a fire or in the yurt of a herdsman. And the cast, aided strongly by the set, managed to do just this. I was engaged from the start when James Bolt and Jumaan Short emerged as the storytellers; part creators of the tale and part Greek chorus.

It is immediately clear that the Storytellers have told this tale before and, like the Gods in Greek Mythology, are able to meddle in human affairs. Their squabbling over petty matters imitates that of Zeus and Hera and, as the actors also take the roles of the characters Old Mother and Dog Boy meet upon the road, an ambiguity is created as to whether, as in Greek Mythology, these characters are the Gods in human form. They provide dramatic counterpoint to the amiability of the storytellers and goodness and strength of Old Mother by illuminating the greed, fallibility and viciousness of the human character.

James' confused, beaten down woodcutter is well judged and Jumaan makes a magnificent brigand queen; petulant, smart and dangerous, wearing her Kalashnikov as though it were a Gucci handbag. Theo Devaney makes an excellent dog and I'm sure many female members of the audience would have liked to pet him. His transformation from beast to man, under the guidance of Old Mother, played with humour by Susan McGoun, is the backbone of the story against which a couple of genuinely moving scenes are played out. The loss of their child by the woodcutter and his wife is particularly affecting, intensified by the use of puppetry.

Yes there is some puppetry in Long Way and it is used to outstanding dramatic effect. In fact, the ghost of Old Mother's husband, made menacingly corporal by some sacking and an upturned pot, comes close to giving the performance of the show, which is not to denigrate the cast but is testament to the skill with which they animate it. You can almost see this wraith breathe and its own journey of personal enlightenment beyond the grave added and almost unbearably tender touch to the warm, strangely life affirming, finale.

And finally, that set. This is no grand extravaganza. It is a 4 metre wide tilted circle with wooden trees which look like they've come from a giant Brio train set, backdropped by layers of plywood. Sounds entirely underwhelming doesn't it? But its total is so much more than the sum of its parts. To say it's beauty and utility lie in it's simplicity would undoubtedly undervalue the complexity of the composition but the effect set the emotional tone for the play before an actor had even taken the stage, with the splendid lighting adding nuance. The set serves as both a vista and microcosm for the action and all in all Long Way Home makes for a thoroughly charming, engaging, heart-warming and good-looking evening.

Steve Hawthorne