Our new reviewer Penny Coles makes her debut with a theatre legend.
Fulfilling our dreams is something we all desire but at what cost? You’d think it would be easier when on the edge of something big, but life tends to be much more complicated than that doesn’t it.
In this production of the National Theatre’s Travelling Light, dreams are made via technological advances, specifically the discovery of moving film and cinema. It is an interesting story for that alone, and even more so considering all the parallels with the changes we are going through in this fast moving digital age.
The play is led by the theatre luminary, and winner of numerous awards, Antony Sher, and co-stars cult BBC Three drama Being Human’s Damien Molony, who appeared in Tis Pity She’s A Whore at the West Yorkshire Playhouse last year.
Nicholas Wright’s new play is at heart a humorous tribute to Eastern European immigrants who became major players in Hollywood’s golden age. In a remote village in Eastern Europe around the turn of the last century, the young Motl Mendl (Molony) is entranced by the flickering silent images on his father’s cinematograph.
Bankrolled by his father Jacob (Sher), the ebullient local timber merchant/moneyman, and inspired by Anna, (Lauren O’Neil) the village girl sent to help him, he stumbles on a revolutionary way of story-telling.
The interesting trick is that the story is retold by a forty year old Motl, now a famed American film director looking back on his early life.
The production values are high which is what you would expect from an internationally renowned company, complete with a great set and cast. The audience loved it when the stage was lit up with shadowy film images to resemble the new media, and there are projections throughout as we witness the unraveling of Motl’s discovery.
Sher plays his part as the misguided father with gusto and carries off a tricky role with what seems to be total ease. Newcomer Molony is completely convincing as the young wannabe director.
Above all, Travelling Light is an interesting story, in part about the discovery of film and partly about the level of the son’s regret. It is a battle between an overprotective father who wants his son to stay to make films in a small but limited village, and an ambitious young man who wants to try his new discovery in more interesting lands.
The story is one in which the battle lines have to be drawn and continually redrawn – an exercise in which Motl inevitably and eventually tires, ruining their relationship.
*Travelling Light is at Leeds Grand Theatre until Saturday 24th March.
*Tickets are priced from £13 to £30. Book by calling the box office on 0844 848 2705 or online at leedsgrandtheatre.com.