The actors move marvellously between each character
Two is a play about a pub and performed in a pub with the press performance preceded by a gin tasting session. I thought life could not get any better, writes Michael Holland.
Jim Cartwright’s 1989 play takes us through one night in a busy pub run by a husband and wife team and peopled by a diverse range of customers. An opening monologue by the landlord reveals that his wife is a ‘cow’ and a ‘bitch’ – or so he thinks… They met there, courted there and had their wedding reception there. Now they ‘own the bloody place’.
The couple barely have time for real conversation as running a pub is a full-time job; 24-7, every day of the year, early starts and late finishes. They bicker behind the bar while bantering with the punters.
A drunk drops by to shout at no one and an old man hobbles in for a glass of mild.
One regular drops in for a Guinness after caring for a husband all day; the Scouser with the roving eye ensures he keeps his girlfriend sweet as she has the beer money; one woman trembles in terror as her husband slyly causes her physical and mental pain, while another declares a penchant for big men while emasculating her mild-mannered husband. There is a dance scene that makes us think slightly better of the low-rent Lothario as we see true love in the eyes of his girlfriend, and feel genuine sadness for the woman in the abusive relationship – a part of the play that creates a deafening silence, as if time has stood still while we glare at her bully bastard husband with genuine hatred.
All life is in that pub, seen through the fourteen different characters and the words that they say. Fourteen different characters with different accents and ages and outlooks on life. Fourteen different characters all played by Kellie Shirley and Peter Caulfield moving marvellously between each one as they pop up in different parts of the bar to be a different person.
Each short scene provides enough information to really know and understand these customers. These small people-portraits are painted with Cartwright’s wonderful words and superb acting from two great actors who bring the best out of each other without it being a competition.
If there is gripe it is that there didn’t appear to be any narrative arc, though the feeling of eavesdropping on these lives made that okay as I could have watched them all night and had a lock in to watch them even more. But then, just like the cry of ‘Last orders’ brings a rush to get that last one in, a previously unseen plot twist was dropped in for the last ten minutes to bring Two to a somewhat unsatisfying end.
But don’t let that put you off as everything else in this play is fantastic.
Greenwich Theatre, Crooms Hill, SE10 8ES until 20th September.
Full details and Booking: https://greenwichtheatre.org.uk/events/two/
