With his satirical comedy ‘The Pigeons’, German playwright David Gieselmann depicts a chaotic, impulsive world, where it’s as if his characters are people who are living their lives on different train tracks and never connect.
The lights come on to reveal a drunken office Christmas party in full swing. The revelers let everything hang out, especially their thoughts and feelings!
Robert (Lawrence Coy), the owner, has had enough of the business and just wants to disappear. All his wife, Gerlinde (Lyn Pierse), can think of is moving to Italy to live. Robert wants to hand over the business to Holger (Garth Holcombe) but he’s totally wrapped up worrying about how to deal with the office bully, Heidrun (Paige Gardiner), who sees bullying as her hobby! Holger’s wife, Natalie (Ashley Ricardo) doesn’t care about her husband’s work problems, she wants him to snap up the promotion. Robert’s son, Helmar (Tom Stokes) just wants to play scrabble with his new Dutch lady friend, Silja (Claire Blumer) whereas Silja wouldn’t mind a quick romp.
‘The Pigeons’ is currently playing at Kings Cross’s Stables theatre, and with a translation by Maja Zade, is the play’s English language world premiere production. Sarah Giles dexterously directs a breakneck sixty five minutes of theatre with the play’s nine characters continually firing barbs and ripostes at each other,
At times I felt like I was in an Oscar Wilde play with the endless verbal ping pong, and at other times like I was in a William Shakespeare comedy with all the mix ups and changes in people’s identities.
The cast do wonderfully well with a manic play that is demanding both of their timing and their stamina. There are some memorable comic parts. Ashley Ricardo gives a fine comic performance as Natalie who has got some major anger management and guilt problems. Fayssal Bazzi plays psychiatrist, Dr Erich Asendorf, who has major boundary issues. Lawrence Coy plays the befuddled lead Robert or is he Francois?!
A comic rollercoaster ride of social foibles, ‘The Pigeons’ opened at the SBW Stables theatre 10 Nimrod Street, Kings Cross on the 8th October and runs until Saturday 30th October, 2010.