Harvest
Production: Harvest
Venue: The Grand Opera House, York
Rating: ****
After sitting through three hours of an infectious and endearing marriage of humour and tragedy, it’s easy to see why Richard Bean’s Harvest received instant critical acclaim from the national press upon its release.
Bean’s ‘monsertist’ play follows the story of a World War One survivor who lives through a century of lost love, dramatic deaths and a dwindling pig farm threatened by the increasing dominance of the supermarket, beginning in 1914 and ending in 2005. Described as an art exposing the human condition through inspirational rather than sentimental overtones, monsertism certainly finds its home at the Grand Opera House in York. Despite being the youngest person in the room, the audience’s enthusiasm certainly added spice to my evening, as each pun was received with an instant burst of appreciation and chuckles of familiarity.
The audience, however, was slightly dwarfed by the immensity and dominance of the stage. Whilst monsertism aims at creating large-scale plays for large-scale stages, I couldn’t help feeling that this was an amplification of a small-scale story for a small-scale audience. It all resulted in a certain separation of actor and audience, when the play seemed to aim for naturalism, realism and socio-political relevance – Bean’s plot focuses on pertinent issues in agriculture, from fox hunting, criticism of the EU, intensive food production and organic food.
Despite a slight tinge of audience alienation, the immediacy of Bean’s dialogue and authenticity of his characters added a powerful dynamic of empathy and poignancy to the pace of the comedy. Expect cries of shock as well as bursts of joy. Katie Wimpenny’s performance is particularly memorable as the feisty and loveable Yorkshire lass Laura, who lives to see her beloved husband die of emphacemia – a Nazi soldier she met during the war – and almost suffers a rape as an older lady. Bean sees all his plays as tragedies, but says he always tries to tell them “with a joke.” The undertone of tragedy that circulates the plot, from the attempted rape to an accidental shooting – in addition to the main character spending 90 percent of the play without legs – never overwhelms its comedic respite. His jokes entwine themselves mellifluously into the development of the plot.
Although its origins may be humble and its appeal rustic, some elements of the Harvest did undoubtedly emerge as unbelievable, from Laura’s marriage to a Nazi general to the family’s reaction when a brother and son gets shot. An unintentional source of comedy came from actor Gunnar Cauthery’s apparently German accent, which managed to manifest itself into distorted forms of Welsh, Russian and English, and unmistakable bouts of line stumbling.
Considering the Harvest’s flyer mundanely describes it as about the “rise and fall of the English rural smallholding through four generations of the same family”, the play proved to be sizzling with endearing characterisation and sustainable narratives, which resisted oppressing the audience with overt politicisation. It’s just a shame it won’t assist in saving the dwindling British farm industry.
Harvest is showing at The Grand Opera House, York, from 10th – 14th February. A student ticket, for any performance, is £5, available from the Box Office on 0844 847 2322 or online at www.grandoperahouseyork.org.uk.
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