Reviews

inspector sands

The Times ****
Devised by members of the young British companies Inspector Sands and Stamping Ground, this deft three-hander boasts the spot-on verbal and physical wit of a theatrical precision instrument. The winner of a Total Theatre Award at the Edinburgh Fringe in the summer, it was one of the gems of the London International Mime Festival.

The piece, lasting one watertight hour, is set in a restaurant presided over by Lucinka Eisler’s painstakingly discreet, androgynous waiter. There is a single table, at which Ben Lewis’s nervous social scientist tries to wine, dine and woo his comely co-worker, Giulia Innocenti. These ace performers spin out a simple premise — a disastrous dinner date — into a clever comedy of manners, carefully planted with ominous global implications.

Eisler’s obsessive-compulsive waiter is an anchoring comic presence. She’s first seen counting her teeth (one of which had somehow moved to the back of her neck). Virtually silent, the character earns laughs via eyes, posture and Eisler’s wonderfully subtle mimetic skill. The show’s smart, absurdist text is shared between Innocenti’s fetching chatterbox and Lewis’s agitated but articulate sad-sack. Together they lurch from awkward small talk and minor confusions to cringe-worthy personal embarrassments and, eventually, mutual chocolate-fuelled lust.

The raven-haired Innocenti, tucked into a tight purple dress, shows what an unbeatable combination sexy and funny can be. Lewis’s character is an ideal counterpart, an ambulating bag of insecurities and indecision who occasionally jumps up and delivers a fractured lecture to us, or bits of audience participation, one of which finds him intimately stroking the back of a stranger’s head.

Hysteria is a rib and mind-tickling delight. It regularly tips over into beautifully controlled excesses that expose the divide between public and private behaviour. The exaggerations work largely because the interplay between the cast, sound and lighting design is so sharply timed. See it at the Komedia, Brighton, in May, or on a UK tour in the autumn. (Donald Hutera)

The Guardian **** Pick of the Day
This beautifully observed physical theatre piece considers the thin line between humour and hysteria, inspired by TS Eliot's 1917 poem of the same name about a quiet afternoon shattered by a woman's hysterical laughter as a waiter serves afternoon tea. Inspector Sands and Stamping Ground Theatre Ground dissect the disturbing tinkle of laughter in our own age of anxiety. It is that most stress-inducing setting - the first date in a smart restaurant - that the company uses to observe the antics of a young couple. He is an academic researching neuroses, including the 1967 Singapore penis panic, and affluenza (the dogged pursuit of the American dream). She works in his university department and is aware of his groundbreaking work. Yet neither is immune from worry, and as the meal continues, nervous chatter - brilliantly funny misunderstandings about aid in the developing world, talk about whether you would prefer to be buried or cremated - turns to anxiety that dissolves into hysteria and temporary madness, all watched over calmly by a silent waiter who has seen it all before and whose impassiveness is a rebuke to the madness of the world around him. The beauty here is not just in the smart script or the precision of the physical work and the way the company meld the two, but in the truthfulness and detail of the observation. The show is very good on scale: does the imminent pop of a champagne cork warrant the same level of anxiety as the melting of the ice cap? Is one person's normal another person's neurosis? This is a clever little show that is neatly put together. I laughed until I cried. (Lyn Gardner)

The Scotsman ****
YOU'RE on a date and you just want to die. It's all going wrong before dinner has even begun. First you're late, then you say the wrong thing, and already your prospective partner thinks you're a fascist. But she's panicking too, and before long you get that feeling building in your chest: whether it is acute embarrassment or painful sexual tension you don't know, but you have to strain every muscle in your body to keep it under control. You can only be sure of one thing. Very soon something's going to blow. Hysteria presents just such a desperate situation. Alongside the hapless dating couple is a weird waiter who is plagued by apocalyptic visions of the earth crashing into the sun. Yet as the frantic tension mounts between the two potential lovers it becomes hard to know which would be worse: a moment of agonising social humiliation or absolute global catastrophe. As if this wasn't enough, the three characters also have the dawning realisation that they are not alone. Rather they're exposed to us, an intimidating, possibly malevolent audience, sitting in silent judgment. It is this direct awareness of the audience that gives the show its innocent and overarching charm. Despite the desperate awkwardness of their situation, the fundamental naïvete of the characters means that you're willing them to succeed. The three performers are in absolute control of their material. Giulia Innocenti, one half of the date, has a sprightly, cherubic face tinged with just a hint of mania. And Lucinka Eisler brings both morbid and androgynous qualities to the waiter. The temptation with a show like this would be to keep building the tension until the whole thing explodes in a spectacular but indulgent moment of total annihilation. But the company neatly avoids that. And when everything does finally break, it happens in a way that reminds you that while it is always possible that the world might just end, the comforting truth is that it probably won't. (Chris Wilkinson)

The Herald *****
Hysteria gets the day rolling with a wickedly funny plunge into the panic zone of a first date. He's an academic researching the social behaviour of exotic tribes - only he's totally devoid of any social skills himself. He's in lust, and out of his depth, with a girl who might just be "the good time had by all". She's thirtysomething now, though, and maybe the party's over and it's time to find Mr He'll Do. While their hormones are on a similar wavelength, their wires are continually crossed to hilariously funny effect. This alone would make for an entertaining show, but there's a third person in this fraught encounter: the wonderfully po-faced, silent waiter (played by Lucinka Eisler) who battens down rising fears of imminent apocalypse by being a control freak. It's physical theatre where the wordplay is as nifty as the body language - and so well done that, even as you howl with laughter, you can't help but feel the edge of genuine anguish that underlies the comedy cantrips. (Mary Brennan)

The Financial Times ****
By his obsessive and at times surreal morning toilette, the waiter in Inspector Sands and Stamping Ground Theatre's Hysteria, based on the T.S. Eliot poem of the same name, reveals himself to be a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Pale and methodical, plagued by the darkest of premonitions, the waiter (played by Lucinka Eisler with something approaching genius) makes lifebelts of the minutiae of his day. Each twist of a champagne cork, each folded napkin helps him stay afloat; we know instinctively that a misplaced fork could consign him to the deep blue sea of human despair. At the restaurant where the waiter works, we meet a man (Ben Lewis) and a woman (Giulia Innocenti) on their first date. They too are hostages to their own neuroses - he an academic increasingly unhinged by the parallels between his studies of and his own experience of the human condition, she a career woman struggling to sublimate her fantasies. As in Eliot's poem, their evening unfolds as a kaleidoscope of barely contained fears and desires. Lewis, whether galloping Mr Bean-style around the dinner table or hiding in the loo engaging in tuneful relaxation exercises, gives an energetic and assured portrayal of this bumbling young man and his seething self-doubts. Innocenti makes great play of her character's secret desires. Dramaturg Jonathan Young and his team - lighting designer Katharine Williams, set designer Yukiki Tsukamoto, and sound collaborators Carolyn Douning and Adrienne Quartly - have created a funny, innovative and at times disturbing exploration of how humans hang on to their sanity. (Naomi Mapstone)

The Metro *****
Inspired by TS Eliot's poem of the same name and staged by Inspector Sands and Stamping Ground theatre, the companies behind 2004 Fringe hit A Quiet Afternoon, Hysteria examines the perils, complexities and absurdities of modern life and relationships, lampooning British society in a novel way. The real excellence is in the details. The faultlessly performed script has many a neat idea. The academic addresses the crowd directly in a series of intermissions, inviting two members to participate in experiments for his research. The sound effects, music and lighting simulate an authentic restaurant experience and add a twist to the action. Painfully real and very, very slick, the hilarious Hysteria deserves to win Inspector Sands and Stamping Ground a raft of new fans. (Andrew Richardson)

Three Weeks *****
I fear that it is almost impossible to do justice to the fine intricacies of this play. A charming and quite frankly hilarious blend of modern day mania and cringe comedy, 'Hysteria' combines a strong plot with extraordinary and slightly deranged performances from a symbiotic trio. An angst-ridden first date, an obsession with bananas and the apocalypse, and an eerie and potentially unhinged waiter are merely a sprinkling of the elements at work here. Hysteria remains addictively compelling viewing throughout, for every shift brings with it a new layer to the delightful depths of quirkiness that build up here, and that linger long after madness has ensued. This really is side-splittingly magical and something quite special. (Kate Abbot)

Edinburgh Guide *****
This is a remarkable show and it is remarkable because of the sophistication of the writing and the wonderful performances by the actors. Hysteria is a funny play which focuses on a dinner date for a peculiar couple, one a researcher in psychological studies, and the second, a rather strange and peculiar woman with a range of unique peccadilloes. The third role is played by an asexual waiter from another dimension with his or her own issues. All these players and factors interplay and mix in a kaleidoscope fashion for the ensuing 60 minutes... A superb production, a Fringe must. (Garry Platt)

British Theatre Guide ****
Giulia Innocenti's brilliant performance as an Event Manageress whose disarming smiles gloss over neurotic fears and anxieties which are hilariously articulated in astonishingly expressive and excessive arm and body movement while peeling and devouring a banana - yes, a banana (she was literally going bananas) whenever anxiety strikes. These panic attacks accompany the temporary distraction of her companion when he communicates with the audience or when he departs for the toilet in an attempt to control his neurosis. Lucinka Eisler's performance as a waiter is astonishingly exquisite. Her face, body movements and manners create a waiter you hope never to encounter and yet transfix. This is an extraordinary production brilliantly staged and performed. Do not miss an opportunity to see it. (Rivka Jacobson)

Total Theatre Magazine

Hysteria is, on one level, a kind of contemporary Restoration comedy of manners, playfully highlighting the follies and frailties of human relationships as negotiated in social settings. It takes as its subject matter a restaurant date in which a man (Ben Lewis) and a woman (Giulia Innocenti) nervously circle around each other, exposing their own neuroses and those of the other, their relationship mediated through the anarchic interventions of an even-more-neurotic-than-the-date-victims waiter (Lucinka Eisler), who has a rich inner life and a tendency towards paranoia. Is this a first date? Maybe they’ve been married for years (‘It’s Just a Temporary Thing’ – Lou Reed). Either way, there’s a lot to learn about each other…

On another level, this is a classic clown show – an eternal triangle of three characters who expose the archetypes and stereotypes within and without through physical/visual/verbal situation comedy. It is horribly, at times excruciatingly, funny.

Moving on up a level: it’s a piece of truly, totally, total theatre that draws together superb physical acting, a sharply honed text, a stunning mise en scene of light and objects, a perfectly tuned sound design and an intelligent use of the performance space.

Hysteria is an excellent example of the pay-off that comes with a slow and careful development process, in which the dramaturgy of a theatre piece is challenged along the way, to the betterment of the show. Praise is due to the Nightingale in Brighton and BAC in London for the roles these venues have played in this process, and to artistic collaborator Jonathan Young. A genuinely collaborative piece of theatre-making, and a worthy winner of a Total Theatre Award. (Dorothy Max Prior)