The 2 Sides of Eddie Ramone: a review

There are reviews for my play, not all in yet, but this one is interesting:

TUESDAY, 26 JULY 2016

Review The 2 Sides of Eddie Ramone

The 2 Sides of Eddie Ramone

by Chris Sullivan

A Comedian's Wake

http://www.jermynstreettheatre.co.uk/

Poor old Eddie - you have to feel for him. Like some latter dayCharon, he's left standing on a boat, in his words, going "into auto pilot". A stand-up comedian on a North Sea cruise ship ploughing its way through choppy seas from and to Hull - just one vowel away from the other place.  

In this way Eddie (Emmerdale and Bergerac veteran Chris Sullivan) starts his act in The 2 Sides of Eddie Ramone. Dressed in the colours of a prelate, red jacket and black silk shirt, he takes the usual place under the spotlight in front of the microphone with a routine minted before television voraciously devoured years of jokes honed on the musical hall and club cricuit and spat them out all in one night.

Both written and directed by Dublin-born Sullivan, Eddie,  an Irishman with (his stage surname Ramone presumably taken from  the famously divided punk pioneers) used to be something big on the telly, a quiz show host. Part of a perfect family with a wife and talented daughter, convent educated Katie (Shian Denovan) who, with help from her Dad, went straight into a sitcom after drama school.

The play sprang into life as a one-man show in Santa Monica and then had a moderately successful run at the Edinburgh Festival.

Now developed as a two-hander, it does indeed capture something of the seriousness, not just in the plotting, but the single-mindedness coupled with vulnerability needed for the successful comedian. 

The tragic tale of Eddie and his daughter can be taken at face value as a family melodrama. But it also explores the  intersection between celebrity, family, sex, the paparazzi and reality TV. Plus the new digital television environment (the sub editor in me did wonder whether this was why the title had "2" in figures instead of the word "Two"), drugs, booze, prostitution and, with an extremely light touch, politics and agents.

The performances are skilful and the drama draws together throughtfully the threads of our modern age. Sullivan shows his chops as a seasoned actor, although occasionally at the beginning, there was a tendency to drop his voice a little too confidentially and inaudibly in filmic style. Donovan is impressive as his daughter Katie, in the garb of a medieval nun, in whom past, present and future meet. 

At the same time, the balance between stereotypical dramatic tropes and the all-too common causes of true-life celebrity downfall  is a delicate one to maintain. The pacing sometimes sags and we did wonder what the eye of a separate director would bring out in the subtle interlacing of themes where literature becomes intertwined with life. 

Still it's a detailled performance from Sullivan with Denovan successfully portraying the younger generation and the uncredited lighting following a trajectory of its own with a hint at one point of early filmmaking. 

The play runs until Saturday, July 30 and with a rousing yet elegaic Joycean ending going back to Eddie's music hall roots coming over crystal clear, this was a thought-proving 70 minutes with a pleasing delivery. So it's an amber light from your very own TLT reviewing double-act.  

POSTED BY TRAFFIC LIGHT THEATREGOER AT 17:14 

LABELS: CHRIS SULLIVAN, JERMYN STREET THEATRE, SHIAN DENOVAN, THE 2 SIDES OF EDDIE RAMONE

Eddie Ready? nearly.

I'm having a really good time with my play – you know what it is – all together: The 2 Sides of Eddie Ramone.

My daughter is played by Shian Denovan and there we are above having the read through – or pretending to have the read through.

There are not many seats booked in advance but you never know – people may walk in.

Whatever happens I have to use the old phrase 'the play's the thing.'

It's a very strange genre of theatre to market. I have loads of those kinds of contacts both with audience and critics. It's not the usual type of critic it's the bloggers we are after. They review the play on the way home, it goes on line and that's where your potential audience is as that's the way the play gets spread by Twitter and Twitter is the main means of communication in the theatre.

I looked at a lot of the 'off west-end' twitter pages and noticed which reviewers were getting re-tweeted and contacted those critics and I have a few coming on the opening night – so we'll see.

But as I say, when I said the play's the thing, that that is the most important thing about it. When you rehearse you learn a lot about the play and it's the most exciting part of the creative process. As I wrote this play I didn't think I would learn much – but I did; a helluva lot. (and that's a word, would you believe – helluva).

You'd be surprised what little nuggets you find in the text – but I wrote it, I hear you say, but it's true.

Shian is a brilliant actress and I knew straight away when I met how good she potentially was and she has proved it. She found little nuggets there, asked the right kind of questions and generally helped towards the production.

She even brought in two jam doughnuts for me today – and this poor old computer can't spell doughnuts.

I, on the other hand, have gone my usual way of learning things at the last minute; it's just the way I work, I suppose, and a pain in the arse when I'm working with other people but this is like two, one person plays. Or a one-man-show and a one-woman-show as we hardly meet on stage at all. And the only time we do our eyes never meet.

So tomorrow I finish of my study of the role, put some music cues on to a memory stick, mark the script for sound and lighting cues for the tech on Sunday (tech is the technical rehearsal) when we will also decide on Shian's costume etc.

We have to go from cue to cue making sure we are in our light so the audience can see us.

By the way – I did raise some money through crowdfunding but wouldn't recommend it to anybody. I think you've really got to be obnoxious or at least persistent – it's a bit like American hard sell – a bit like Trump as he raises billions and, as we have arrived at the door of politics, is the most dangerous individual in the world.

Come and see the play if you're in town it's called . . . . . .

http://www.jermynstreettheatre.co.uk/show/two-faces-eddie-ramone/