The wheels literally came off the opening night performance of MINUS ONE SISTER.
Everyone of the four cast members were working perfectly when one of the four castors on the bed, central to the wrapped in plastic set, gave way.
Stage manager, Angharad Lindley appeared on stage, followed by director, Luke Rogers, who obviously retains castor approval and proclaimed an impromptu interval while the role of the rollers was sorted.
Ah, live theatre!
Within a quarter hour the show resumed, MINUS ONE SISTER, minus one trolley, the castors amputated and the bed legs now solidly grounded to the floor.
Anna Barnes’ script is inspired by Sophocles’ take on the Elektra story and focuses on the fallout of domestic violence as perceived and experienced by teenage siblings.
The sister of the title, Iphigenia, was “sacrificed” by her father who in turn was murdered by her mother, Clytemnestra. This act creates a great mourning in Electra, one of the two remaining sisters, so much so that she spends time in and out of a psychiatric ward. Hence the bed. The other sister, Chrysothemis, seems not as scarred and while supportive of her sibling, is keen for her to shake herself of the past and move on.
Electra is consumed by the idea of justice delivered by revenge and convinces her brother Orestes that their mother must die along with her new spouse.
The declamatory style of its root source does not always synchromesh with the modern naturalistic performance and the vehicle stalls on occasion.
Kate Cheel is a suitably chilly Electra, Lucy Heffernan an ethereal Iphgenia, Contessa Treffone an ingenuous pan collared Chrysothemis, Liam Nunan does a fine Boy’s Own baby brother, Orestes.
Georgia Hopkins’ plastic draped walls, furniture, and television conjure domestic sterility and crime scene. The bed becomes an unholy altar of bloody matracide.
Pity about the castors. Come to think of it, wasn’t Clytemnestra’s brother called Castor? Spooky.
MINUS ONE SISTER is playing the SBW Stables Theatre, 10 Nimrod Street, Kings Cross until Saturday 3rd October. Performance times Mondays to Saturdays at 7pm with also a 2pm matinee on the final day.