Theatre the Ruffian On the Stair/4.48 Psychosis, the Citizens', Glasgow 4/5

Summary

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It's telling that this second double-bill of the Citizens' Little Bit of Ruff season highlights plays premiered at London's Royal Court. Because, while more than 30 years apart in construction, they each capture the social mores of their respective times perfectly. That they, too, counterpoint the all-pervading myth of false optimism, speaks volumes about how such eras are falsely defined.

Joe Orton's The Ruffian on the Stair is a wonderfully fetishistic comedy of menace set in an unreconstructed London full, as well- turned-out spiv Mike puts it, "of whores and communists". As ex- hooker Joyce idles away her day, a young, bully boy with a few scores to settle inveigles in. What emerges in Vivien Reid's pitch- perfect production, is like a physical and verbal lowlife manifestation of Polanski's Repulsion. With Candida Benson's Joyce looking very Carol White, and Andrew Clark's Mike the archetypal cockney gangster, it's plain to see which latter-day young Turks earned their chops from Orton's epigrammatic dexterity.

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Theatre the Ruffian On the Stair/4.48 Psychosis, the Citizens', Glasgow 4/5

By contrast, Sarah Kane's final play, 4.48 Ps...

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