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Play’s enthralling contrasts |
| By Steve Wright |
| The programme states that any similarities with the present day are purely coincidental, but in no time at all you realise the writer's tongue is firmly in his cheek.
Miren Theatre Company's I Wish I Were a Cat is set in Argentina in the Seventies, under an oppressive military regime, but the parallels with today’s terrorist paranoid West are stark and revealing. |
| Juan Herrera plays a man imprisoned by a largely unseen authority, subjected to interrogation and torture, trapped in a small cell.
His submissive state is juxtaposed by his intense relationship with a man (played by Darren Hoskins), who may be merely a representation of his subconscious or a manifestation of his falling mental health. |
| The play contrasts moments of touching poignancy – the prisoner's memories of his son's ill health, or the taste of his wife's final kiss- with robust gallows humour. |
| The on-stage chemistry between the two lead actors is engaging and their energetic performance fills out a narrative that deliberately leaves itself open to a number of interpretations. I Wish I Were a Cat asks more questions than it answers, but keeps the audience enthralled for all of its forty five minutes. |
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2006 Theatre Review of the Year |
| …Other highlights? Try Miren Theatre's splendid 'I Wish I Were a Cat', in which a three-man cast tackled terrorist paranoia, human rights abuse and life in a military dictatorship with quite brilliant dexterity… |
