Shakers. Hull Truck Theatre Company, Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds.
THE glitzy neon sign, the stomach churning seafood pasta and the 80's music pinpoint the scene at Shakers. The bar where the bored supermarket girls yearn to party, but the bored waitresses yearn for a better life, bursts on stage in this sassy and exciting new version by the Hull Truck Theatre Company.
Strapping lasses Adele, Mel, Nicky and Carol toil nightly for the sleazy-sounding but absent Mario, serving drinks and enduring the crass gropings of boozy customers. Each character in this multi-role drama, however, reveals secret aspirations underneath feisty exteriors.
Liz Carney's forceful and determined Adele works so that her baby won't want for anything. Abandoned by her man, she's prepared to do anything, even to wear the awful shorts insisted on by Mario, to earn money. Her dignity is impressive. Mel (Claire Eden) never backward in coming forward, picks on Adele's motherhood for particular attention. Her own sadness is movingly addressed in confessions of a disastrous teenage affair. Claire's sensitive handling of this pivotal role is outstanding. Her skill in switching between the grumpy salesgirl, the strong-armed barwoman, the imaginary customers and the woman bidding latecomers to fornicate elsewhere is superb.
Nicky (Pippa Fulton) and Carol (Annmarie Hosell) have their sights set on better things. Carol, the first in her family to earn a degree, has few career prospects, but mimics her customers to perfection. Her duet with Mel, taking off firstly the yuppies then the not-so-blessed over the menu, is brilliant. Nicky lets on that she has a job offer to dance on a cruise ship –the jealous girls are slightly consoled to know that the destination is cold Norway rather than anywhere hot. Nicky's fear of going topless is made palpable – is a glamorous sounding job really any different to the degrading work they're currently doing?
The props are just an arch and four red chairs. Actors come downstage into blue lighting when strutting their stuff about customers, and speak in an amazing range of accents. They follow the hopes of the shop girls planning a birthday party, from doing the make up through to the drunken aftermath.
Dialogue gems such as "she don't know shit from butter – you'd better not be having one of her sandwiches then!" clearly indicate that Shakers is far more than a bar with a tale to tell. It's worth getting in a cocktail or two yourself before closing time in this terrific production, running till Saturday November 14th.
Mary Dunk, 2009.
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