Pentabus - Precious Bane
31st July to 3rd August 2003.
This is from the NWN.
Some idyllic eveningPentabus: Precious Bane, at Welford Park, from Thursday, July 31 to Sunday, August 3 This was Mary Webb's tale of loves lost and found in the wild countryside of early 19th-century England. A new world of industry and riches invades the idyllic peace of young Prue and Gideon Sarn's family farm, upsetting life-long dreams and making wishes come true. The essential story is of a girl with a hare-lip, cursed as a witch, blessed in the end. Last Friday I went with some friends and a simple picnic to Welford Park to see this performance of Precious Bane, a well-chosen piece to be performed in this idyllic setting by Pentabus Theatre Company. Pentabus is the national new writing company based in the West Midlands. The company was founded in 1974 to tour the five counties of the Midlands, and now tours to small and middle-scale venues throughout the country. The company also has a strong reputation for large-scale outdoor productions such as Precious Bane. Pentabus won an Edinburgh Fringe First award for Silent Engine in 2002, an Arts Council of England New Writing Award 2003, and has thriving writers' development programme and extensive education projects for all ages. This, to me, was complete outdoor theatre, not television, not film but a live event, reminding me of the old medieval mummer carts, which used to tour villages long ago - the very origins of taking theatre to the community - which in those days delivered news and parables not through your door but in the town square, in your face. Precious Bane had constantly changing staging with deeply imaginative use of simple props evoking all the essential elements: fire, water and even a real horse. This was superb storytelling in our midst by eight actors, acting at its very best and magnificently supported by highly-evocative music performed by a massed choir, which included local performers. This was all much complimented and married to the Welford Park grounds, with the audience sitting on rugs and camp-chairs in an informal structure. It was ultimately capped by a superb flock of 30 geese - on cue, twice wheeling over Welford Park towards the south and then changing their minds and returning as dusk fell. EUAN SMITH |
This is from The Times.
But if Precious Bane is typical of Webbs work, her eclipse is
clearly outrageous. There is a bracing toughness to her dialogue, vigour in
her scene-setting, scorn for superstition and a sympathy with the
underprivileged, especially if they have right on their side and refuse to
be cowed by the mob. JEREMY KINGSTON |
This is from The Guardian, on a previous production in Shropshire.
LYN GARDNER |
The Reviews Gate review ("vibrant theatricality, well organised stage craft, and a clear sense of narrative drive") is now lost.