Theatre | Love Magic and Behind the Wire in short, sharp double bill

The two plays, which will be staged at The Royal Exchange Theatre, in Bolton Street, Newcastle, from August 14 to 17, use very different types of comedy to make them engaging.

Michael Ewans, a conjoint professor in the School of Humanities and Social Science at Newcastle University, translated and adapted Love Magic from a mime - a short monologue-style play generally delivered in ancient Greece by one actor on a bare stage, but with occasional background voices heard - that was voiced by a woman.

This, as Ewans notes, was extremely rare when Greek poet Theocritus wrote the mime in the middle of the 3rd century BC, as women's voices were seldom heard on stage until around 1650AD, several decades after the death of William Shakespeare.

In the mime, generally known as Idyll II: The Spell, the girl, Simaitha, uses magic to put a spell on an athletic young man who dumps her after having sex with her. And, as Michael Ewans also points out, magic was very much the property of men in ancient Greece and for many centuries after.

Likewise, while witchcraft is now associated with women, in ancient times it was mostly a male prerogative, with Simaitha, played by Carl's daughter, Siobhan Caulfield, referring to that. And Samaitha, who was attracted to the young man, is determined to get him back.

Carl Caulfield's play, Behind the Wire, was very much in a draft format when Michael Ewans told him that he'd completed Love Magic and was wondering if Carl, who heads a company called Stray Dogs Theatre, had a play that could be the other half of the performance.

"When I mentioned it to Michael, he said 'You've got to get this put on'.

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Behind the Wire is set in a detention camp which houses people who have tried to sail to Australia in refugee boats and have been caught before landing in the country. Carl put the play together because he was dispirited by the treatment of the desperate refugees. And he points to the play, like Love Magic, also looking at oppression.

Behind the Wire, directed by Carl Caulfield, centres on five very different people in the detention centre which is on an unnamed island.

Michael Byrne is Mr Thomas, who has just taken over running the detention camp. He's more humane than his predecessor, but a new agency has been appointed to control the venue and its employees are obsessed with security. Dez Robertson is Mr Cassidy, a member of the tough new agency; Eily Pleming is a woman who works alongide Mr Cassidy, and goes through the belongings the refugees brought with them; and Khalil Kaye is a refugee Iraqi doctor, who is regarded as suspicious.

The Love Magic and Behind the Wire double bill can be seen at the Royal Exchange nightly at 7.30pm from Wednesday, August 14, to Saturday, August 17, at 7.30pm. Tickets, $25, conc. $20, can be bought at the door, cash sales only.

THIS is understandably one of the most popular comic works by Gilbert and Sullivan, with the male and female characters appropriately moving to the front when the need arises.

And it was rewarding to see both casts perform the songs, dances and dialogue, with those in principal roles being just as engaging when they were members of the brisk ensemble.

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The title characters come across from when they are first seen as being not very efficient as would-be stern thieves, with one of the early songs, delivered by a woman who is among their team, confusing "pirates" with "pilots".

And their attempts to woo the daughters of an inept "modern major-general" show that even he is more adept at getting things done.

At least the members of our present-day police forces can more straight-facedly keep things in order as they use a cat-like tread.

Or can they?

WHILE playwright Samuel Beckett took unsuccessful legal action in his lifetime to try to prevent women playing the all-male roles in this very amusing comedy that has two men spending day after day waiting for the arrival of the mysterious title character before nightfall, this production shows just how well the people can be brought to life by talented female actors.

Janet Gillam, as Vladimir, the more determined of the pair, is sharply-worded and unsmiling, and gradually revealed to be just as unaware of why they have to meet Godot as her more questioning companion, Estragon, with Jan Hunt making it clear that if she was the leader they'd be doing more practical things.

And the other pair who move along the road each afternoon, very stern Pozzo (Tracey Owens) and her ironically named slave, Lucky (Angela McKeown), who is rope-tied, are an engaging contrast.

Director Michelle Burnitt makes watchers eager to continue waiting for Godot after interval.

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