Camden Fringe 2024
I believe in one Bach
Two Foolish
Genre: Drama, Fringe Theatre, New Writing, Theatre
Venue: Etcetera Theatre
Festival: Camden Fringe
Low Down
What is the essence of being a musician? What happens when music is your whole world, but that world slowly crumbles around you?
Review
We meet Alan Godlieb (which translates to ‘loved by God’) as he prepares yet again to play the second violin part for the J.S. Bach’s B-minor Mass. In general being a second violin is a thankless task. There are really only two uses for them: Often they mirror the first violins in unison or even intervals. Sometimes they become an unappreciated drone when helping other instruments in the orchestra to fill out the harmonies. Alan calls the second violins ‘Invisible Bridesmaids’. There are many such beautiful expressions in this play and Chris Brannick’s wordsmithing is in a league of its own. No wonder he is a price winning screen writer.
Alan is preparing for a rehearsal. There is some quite mean banter going on between him and his desk partner, Maggie Draycot, whom he has known for what feels like ever. They are both mature artists stuck at the back of their section, seemingly forgotten by the world. Maggie is disillusioned with her job. She can be snarky and condescending. Alan still loves being a musician. Especially, when it is J.S. Bach and even more so when it is the B-Minor Mass. Alan has played or maybe it would be better to say endured playing the endless Wilhelm Tell overtures and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons by candlelight, but he still has the spark. That glimmer inside still makes him want to be a musician. He has never lost his love for music making.
As we find out over the next hour his playing is not really up to scratch anymore. He is called into the office of Betty Plowright, the orchestra’s CEO and told there won’t be any more gigs after the Bach. He is already under investigation after the conductor complained over the string section. Alan doesn’t want to get pushed out. He wants to fight for his position in the orchestra. To support his case he visits his former teacher, Elisabeth Hofstätter. She was one of the rising stars of her time, but physical problems with her arm forced her into full-time teaching. Hoffy, as Alan affectionately calls her, is now a very old lady waiting for her end. She has given up cleaning her home and spends most of her day drinking vodka. She is disappointed when Alan plays for her. The reaction is so strong she can’t hide it. Alan is distraught. Hoffy tries to comfort him by saying the best music will always be heard in his head unencumbered by scores and conductors. Alan doesn’t understand.
When she dies he finds himself in a church. There he has a transcendental experience. He not only sees the church filling with an angelic choir performing the B-Minor Mass, no, he also is in the presence of Bach, who seems to call to Alan. He is moved incredibly deeply. He sees and hears Bach and utterly exhausted collapses in his pew.
The play is well crafted and brings out each different layer of the narrative well. Brannick takes the role of Alan while Karen Kirkup plays every other role, Betty the CEO, Maggie the desk partner and Hoffy the teacher. She performs also the role of narrator, who talks directly to the audience with a loving sweetness. Everything apart from Alan is white. The boxes that are used as sets, the violin case, the pencil holder, the score even the vodka bottle. This gives the play a strange, ethereal feel. We are never really sure what is real and what is in Alan’s head. The musician moves through a shadow world. The only thing he lives for is music, even while is body is starting to fail him.
Brannick has written a sensitive play that offers a deep insight into the soul of a musician and what it means to lose the one thing that defines one’s existence. He is an accomplished actor and as a percussionist himself, he really understands how to describe the relationship a musician has to his work and music. He uses often very poetic language in Alan’s soloquies, frequently when he is in a reverie about Bach’s music. The audience experiences the process of music making via Alan as if he was a medium.
Kirkup, who plays four characters in this play, manages to give each one their own note. The narrator is talking direct to the audience and comes across as benevolent and sweet. Betty is harsh, standoffish and corporate. The two caring characters Hoffy and Maggie have a more familiar bend. The teacher is maternal while the desk partner is more like a sister. She wears the same white costume throughout and is fully reliant on her skills as an actor to make clear who she is portraying at any given time. She makes this look effortless.
Two Foolish, a theatre company founded in 2016 by Karen Kirkup and Chris Brannick, are reviving their play ‘I believe in one Bach’, while they finish up typing a new stand-alone play that follows on from it.
