May 11, 2011
The Studio Theatre Club’s decision to stage of G K Chesterton’s The Man who was Thursday: A Nightmare was a bold choice for an amateur company. The subject matter is a dazzling and at time bewildering reflection of the man – a journalist, poet, writer of fiction and Christian apologetics, and a keen debater.
At one level it is a Buchanesque thriller (published in 1908) driven by a fear of revolution. A policeman Syme (a very literate one too!) infiltrates a group of European anarchists, by securing his election as Thursday. The other members of the group are also named after the days of the week. Sunday, the sinister leader, quickly unveils one of the number as being a traitor, and Syme finds himself leading an attempt to stop one of the group (the Marquis) completing an assassination in Paris.
But the play is also a battlefield on which Chesterton’s characters debate his ideas. At the beginning, Gregory argues that “a poet is always an anarchist” whereas Syme insists that “chaos is dull. It is things going right that is poetical”. It is Gregory who is the more attractive of the two protagonists; he dresses as an anarchist so that no-one will suspect him of being an anarchist. Matt Kirk’s performance in the role was excellent, as were the performances of the cast generally. They made a fine fist of bringing Chesterton’s carefully crafted words to life, and yet one of the mini-highlights for me was a wordless scene, in which Syme is followed by the sinister “Professor du Worms” who pursues him all the while carrying a glass of milk (really!). Creepy and funny. The music and lighting was excellent too, doing much to create atmosphere in this lovely but confined theatre space.
Do go along and see it. You will lap up the ridiculous ideas (a special section of the police made up of philosophers). You will delight in the wonderful wordplay (“we go to artists’ tea parties to detect pessimists”). And you will probably come away a bit confused. At the end, the devil (as he appears to be) damns the police for being the people in power. “I curse you for being safe,” he says. Someone, somewhere once said that the Devil gets the best lines. I guess he was right.
At one level it is a Buchanesque thriller (published in 1908) driven by a fear of revolution. A policeman Syme (a very literate one too!) infiltrates a group of European anarchists, by securing his election as Thursday. The other members of the group are also named after the days of the week. Sunday, the sinister leader, quickly unveils one of the number as being a traitor, and Syme finds himself leading an attempt to stop one of the group (the Marquis) completing an assassination in Paris.
But the play is also a battlefield on which Chesterton’s characters debate his ideas. At the beginning, Gregory argues that “a poet is always an anarchist” whereas Syme insists that “chaos is dull. It is things going right that is poetical”. It is Gregory who is the more attractive of the two protagonists; he dresses as an anarchist so that no-one will suspect him of being an anarchist. Matt Kirk’s performance in the role was excellent, as were the performances of the cast generally. They made a fine fist of bringing Chesterton’s carefully crafted words to life, and yet one of the mini-highlights for me was a wordless scene, in which Syme is followed by the sinister “Professor du Worms” who pursues him all the while carrying a glass of milk (really!). Creepy and funny. The music and lighting was excellent too, doing much to create atmosphere in this lovely but confined theatre space.
Do go along and see it. You will lap up the ridiculous ideas (a special section of the police made up of philosophers). You will delight in the wonderful wordplay (“we go to artists’ tea parties to detect pessimists”). And you will probably come away a bit confused. At the end, the devil (as he appears to be) damns the police for being the people in power. “I curse you for being safe,” he says. Someone, somewhere once said that the Devil gets the best lines. I guess he was right.