FringeReview UK 2024
Alma Mater
Almeida Theatre
Genre: Contemporary, Drama, Mainstream Theatre, Theatre
Venue: Almeida Theatre
Festival: FringeReview UK
Low Down
“By a student here?” The new Master of an ancient College might have been one of the first female intake there, a fearless journalist and feminist. But her first, cautious response to reported sexual assault is almost akin to Lady Macbeth’s “What, in our house?” Too cruel anywhere. Kendall Feaver’s Alma Mater is directed by Polly Findlay at the Almeida till July 20th.
Kendall Feaver’s very integrity might not satisfy those who enjoy outcomes dispelled in light. But that’s the point.
Writer Kendall Feaver, Director Polly Findlay, Set Designer Vicki Mortimer, Costume Designer Fay Fullerton, Lighting Designer Jessica Hung Han Yun, Sound Designer Ian Dickinson, Composer and Vocal Artist Alev Lenz, Musical Director Toby Higgins, Movement Director Shelley Maxwell
Casting Director Amy Ball CDG, Costume Supervisor Kate Hemstock, Dialect Coach Salvatore Sorce, Production Dramatherapist Wabriya King, Assistant Director Connie Treves
Production Manager Tom Horton, Producer Sam South, Production Co-ordinator Emily Brown, CSMs Anna-Maria Casson, Lauren Patman, DSM Sorcha Doherty, ASM Olivia Page, Stage Management Placement Elsa Gear
Till July 20th
Review
“By a student here?” The new Master of an ancient College might have been one of the first female intake there, a fearless journalist and feminist. But her first, cautious response to reported sexual assault is almost akin to Lady Macbeth’s “What, in our house?” Too cruel anywhere. Kendall Feaver’s Alma Mater is directed by Polly Findlay at the Almeida till July 20th.
And there has been murder in this house, or more precisely on the playing-fields, back in 1986. Jo Mulligan (Justine Mitchell, replacing Lia Williams who withdrew for health reasons) engages with an inaugural speech a year earlier: winning, funny, triumphal feminism to the fore, she deploys misogynist remarks from her student years, including C-words, only to flip them over.
But with her 1980s ex, Michael Danfield (Nathaniel Parker) her former tutor now happily married to her oldest friend Leila Bahrami (Nathalie Armin), she recalls the unsolved murder of fellow-student Alison Welsh. Only sympathetic scientist Leila remembers her now.
Everywhere Feaver plants possibility and resolution: there’s routes not taken. Now College Board Chairman, Michael’s askance at Jo’s proposed use of the venerable chapel. Jo’s attuned to repurposing old fabric; but can be tone-deaf to new people.
Alma Mater is an intricately-plotted study of nuance, and the clash of two generations of feminists. The one Jo belongs to, refusing to be cowed, slut-walking, defiant. And the #MeToo movement. Naturally boundaries and empathies are blurred and loyalties problematic. Jo’s first instinct is damage limitation, to change from within, as she sees it. But in Mitchell’s shadowed hard edges, you see the conflict scud across her face, the moments where she just might change.
Jo has already interviewed Ghazali, or Gerald Amir (Liam Lau-Fernandez) after his former friend Nikki Stewart (Phoebe Campbell) – so like the younger Jo, Jo realises – has reported third-year male students stalking women freshers on Facebook; and claiming first peer-refusal.
That too returns. But Nikki is more distracted by first-year Paige Hutson (a luminous Liv Hill) asking for a morning-after pill; she finally admits to being raped whilst unconscious. Extremely reluctant to report it, Paige is gradually won over to anonymous witness by Nikki, who knows what Paige has endured.
Jo’s brought in, Leila offers to moderate. Only with Jo, even old friends aren’t immune, as Leila puts it, to “Jo Mulligan’s formidable capacity to bulldoze a conversation”. Still anonymous, Paige’s story virally attracts hundreds of others. Sides are taken.
Campbell gives life and fire to an uncompromising student. Not wanting for instance to give witness publicly to what happened to her, Nikki wants the story, but not be it and stand publicly alongside Paige. Paige though wants something different from her. In this Nikki’s journalistic instincts echo Jo’s pragmatism.
Feaver’s massively even-handed in teasing out mixed motivations of nearly everyone. Lau-Fernandez affably hides a secret with those Facebook raids, seemingly innocuous. His gawkishly callow Gerald though is nuanced with a sidelight of cultural interest expanded with Parker’s Michael.
Parker catches the edgy warmth of a happily-married man who yet knows of something between himself and Jo, that neither explain. His rising irritation carries a hidden charge. There’s clues Feaver refuses to resolve. Michael’s command of Persian leads to the one, quite gentle male-only scene.
By contrast one of the two most sympathetic characters, Armin’s Iran-born Leila, can spring fierce surprises. And the first act closes with the arrival of another, mother of the accused in Tamara Beale (Susannah Wise). Even here Wise injects protective anxiety, rounding Tamara to a mother whose sense of wrong is skewed.
Hill’s later development of Paige too is a study in self-discovery and voice in directions neither Gerald nor Nikki expect; and a final surprise one with Jo.
An exemplary cast, production is undistracting and lean. Vicki Mortimer’s stark set with benches and Fay Fullerton’s sleek costumes, Jessica Hung Han Yun’s lighting that enjoys surprising gulphs of darkness. Alev Lenz’s three-note themes are realised in haunting choral phrases under Toby Higgins’ direction and Ian Dickinson’s sound.
There might have been darker twists in this two-and-a-half hour play, but Feaver refuses them. One obvious resolution is dismissed for plot purposes, and the final scene adverts to events of nearly 40 years earlier.
Refusing to let appalling events dictate her rounded characters, Feaver has written one of the most interrogative plays on contemporary feminism. Her very integrity might not satisfy those who enjoy outcomes dispelled in light. But that’s the point.
