Two terrific performances showcase this world premier play about the loves and life of Terence Wren, a teacher who can”t decide whether to be a poet or a philosopher. The actors take it in turn to play the professor, his student, his lover, their judge, jury and critics, as they take the audience on a ride through the life of the eponymous professor.
They switch effortlessly between communication styles, narrating one moment, presenting the next, from absolute silence, through stage asides to a screaming halt every ten minutes or so. They make the most of small, barren stage, and the excellent use of lighting adds to the intimacy of the venue.
The time shifting narrative can be somewhat disjointed, but the show is riddled with appealing real-time arguments, and vicious circles of philosophical concepts. Kudos must go particularly to the script, as real care is taken to keep the philosophy superficial: it would have been easy to drown the show with advanced thinking beyond both the abilities and desires of the audience.
Mostly fluent, sometimes deliberately awkward, this is both challenging and entertaining stuff. It falters slightly due to some overly surreal moments, and the unnecessarily telegraphed twist at the end, but on the whole, we are effectively taken through the increasing madness of a man obsessed with understanding his philosophies, his lover and himself, in a tale resulting in insanity, love, self-discovery and murder.
Throwaway theatre this is certainly not. The show may suffer from it’s post-lunch time allocated slot, but if you can spare 45 minutes to see two very fine young actors having fun with a concept script which positively drips with dark humour, Professor Wren’s Goldfish is well worth a look. I doubt you will be disappointed.
4/5
Simon Ferguson
