Caryl Churchill's Owners is an excellent example of how you can feel nostalgic for an unpleasant time in history. After all fifty years since its premiere, the property market has gone from bad to worse. And despite the seventies look and feel, it feels as if it still has something to say about property, ownership, and the transactional relationships that make up life in the country. Not to mention the relentless pursuit of Victorian terrace houses that most parts of the world wouldn't touch, it is currently playing at the
Jermyn Street Theatre.
The revival brings out the oddities of the piece. The freewheeling sexual politics and the changing legal environment allowing property to be bought and sold with less regulation seem like they are from a different time and place. And they are. It's almost as if we need a history lesson to understand the time and place. The programme notes that market rates for tenancies were only allowed in 1989. Since then, we have been through boom and bust cycles and new trends, such as the rise of property as an investment. Something to keep dark most of the year and only to park your money. Or launder it.
The premise opens with Clegg, the butcher (Mark Huckett), shutting his butcher shop. The neighbourhood isn't what it used to be, with people preferring to go to the nearby supermarket. But things aren't too dire for him. His wife, Marion (Laura Doddington), has a thriving business of buying up properties. She is good at it, too. With her assistant and part-time lover Worsely (Tom Morley), he makes deals to clear out tenants and take over the property. However, one property she has her eyes on is the one rented by a former lover, Alec (Ryan Donaldson) and his heavily pregnant wife, Lisa (Boadicea Ricketts).
While the arguments and the characterisations are sometimes bizarre, if you succumb to the wackiness of the piece and go along for the ride, it's still a provocative and entertaining night of theatre, especially with the performances of the ensemble and the fabulously economical set design of doors of drab English homes by Cat Fuller. The smaller space of Jermyn Street may mean that the ambition and scale of the piece are difficult to appreciate. Still, instead, we have a detailed and evocative recreation of a time and place that seems almost palatable. And a series of observations about the random transactional nature of life in London.
Stella Powell-Jones directs Caryl Churchill's Owners at Jermyn Street Theatre until 11 November.
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Photos by Steve Gregson
