The Bill
Naughton Studio at Bolton Octagon Friday 14th September 2012
Written by
Joe O’Byrne. Directed by Ian Curley
Review
Bolton-based
writer/actor/director Joe O’Byrne’s one man play, ‘I’m Frank Morgan’, was
written a decade ago, and is the first in the ongoing series of plays located
on the fictional northern England estate of Paradise Heights. You may have seen
the subsequent works such as ‘Rank’,
‘The Bench’, or his most recent ’Strawberry Jack’, but here we have something
I just wasn’t expecting. I’d seen the
excellent short film version of ‘I’m Frank Morgan’ (directed by Paul Murphy),
and was riveted by the story of a cold-bloodied Irish loan shark operating with
ruthless amoral efficiency before being stung to the core by the results of his
actions against a family in debt. Frank Morgan is a terrifying creation; a man
without pity or remorse, yet O’Byrne infuses him with just enough of a hint of
humanity that one simply can’t help falling for his crocodile charm. I’d been
told, by O’Byrne himself, that this updated (in terms of character and tone,
yet retaining the exact same dialogue as the original play) version would
illuminate a side of Frank never seen before. I had no idea what we were in
store for, but knowing Joe’s proven track record for hard-hitting, ultra
realistic, yet constantly surprising writing, I was prepared to be shocked. And
shocked I was. This was Frank Morgan in a hell of his own making. A cesspit of
the mind. Director Ian Curley has turned the character inside out and delivered
the flip side of the Paradise Heights hard man. The set is Frank’s miserable,
litter-strewn bedsit with the man himself seemingly a ghost in his own life. Has
he had a nervous breakdown or are we being shown the inside of his head?
Indeed, the play begins and ends with Morgan asleep on his scummy single bed,
and perhaps this is all a very clever take on the state of Frank’s soul. Rising
ever so slowly from his slumber, Frank takes his time shuffling around like a
man in a daze, taking forever to make a cup of coffee and staring blankly ahead
whilst waiting for his toast to heat. O’Byrne delivers a low key, mesmeric, and
utterly disturbing performance that contrasts magnificently with his earlier,
and well-established, hard-nosed portrayal. This is a shadow of a man, mumbling
and stuttering his way through a lifetime of rage, sorrow and soul-destroying
guilt in around an hour of real time. Director Curley adds spine-tingling
moments such as Frank beginning the same speech several times in subtly
different vocal styles, as if trying desperately to summon up the spirit of the
man he once was. Anyone who has seen Frank Morgan at his terrifying best in the
original play and film, or in other Paradise Heights instalments, will be
shocked to see how far the man has fallen here. It’s a brave brave move on the
part of O’Byrne the writer, and O’Byrne the actor shows us just how skilled a performer
he is - taking the exact same character he’s played a hundred times before and
presenting the same man gutted and skinned to the bone. This is an animated
corpse of a man; indeed perhaps a man who has never been truly alive. A shade.
An unpleasant aftertaste. A creature suffering damnation for the unending pain
he’s brought into the lives of so many innocent others. Or was it all just a
dream? Watch this space, because you can’t keep a bad man down.
It has to be
said that this production was not an easy one to sit through; this was an
evening that wore its audience down gradually and without pity. One could ask
should we have been shown a few more flashes of the old Frank? Would a more
varied pace have helped? Joe O’Byrne does not compromise, and here we had a
great talent stretching the boundaries; probing his audience, testing his own
performance skills, and bravely gnawing at the patience of his audience. I can
imagine this parallel universe version of Frank Morgan working well as a short
film, where O’Byrne’s screwed-up creation could frighten the living daylights
out of us in extreme close-up. As a live performance there seemed too much
physical space, and I felt the need to peer more closely into those haunted
eyes. In real life I’d stay a million miles away from the likes of Mr Frank Morgan,
but in artistic terms I’d like to be nose-to-nose; Frank should be on the
screen. Trapped in a bottle like a poisonous spider. Ironically, for so huge a
creation less is increasingly more. Maybe O’Byrne and Curley have fashioned a
whole new beast here – Homeopathic Hell?
As an extra
bonus, O’Byrne’s short film ‘The Watcher’ was screened during the second half
of the evening. This gave us a chance to see Frank Morgan as we’ve come to
expect him – clean, sharply dressed, and as cold as the hole where a politician’s
heart should be. I’d seen and reviewed the film a year ago, but loved seeing it
again, especially in the context of following the harrowing experience of
witnessing Frank Morgan’s disintegration. Here’s what I said about it:http://fictionmaker.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/watcher_5547.html
Another superb
evening from The Bard of Bolton.
This review originally published (in a slightly edited format) at The Public Reviews http://www.thepublicreviews.com/im-frank-morgan-octagon-theatre-bolton/
