Spinning Into Butter ( Archived )

Reviews

newspaper reviews

(L to R) : Emma Fielding as Sarah, David Horovitch as Burton, Robert Bowman as Ross, Mido Hamada as Patrick.

Production photography by Ivan Kyncl.

Direction: Dominic Cooke. Design: John Stevenson. Lighting: Johanna Town. Sound: Paul Arditti.

Cast: Robert Bowman, Susan Engel, Emma Fielding, Jordan Frieda, Mido Hamada, David Horovitch, Fred Ridgeway

“Rebecca Gilman’s new play, set in an American college, is an anatomy of racism in various liberal disguises, the hypocrisies of political correctness and the agonies of a society where all apologise, but few really care. Emma Fielding leads a first rate cast.”

SUNDAY TIMES

“This a dangerous, searching, brilliant play, probing the self-inflicted wounds of a self-righteous civilisation … Fielding gives a performance of technical virtuosity and hard, unsparingly emotional self-exploration. The accent is excellent, and the trim body language suggests some one seriously, if not very sophisticatedly, sexual who needs to be seen as energetic, efficient, serious and relentlessly bright.

“Dominic Cooke’s production is lucid, even-handed and expertly paced. The play has a thriller element, but Cooke ensures that you have time and space to size up the characters and absorb the argument. David Horovitch turns in a first-rate performance as the malevolently sanctimonious senior academic, an obnoxious, self-admiring bully with the brutal smugness of people who suspect or disapprove of everybody. (Observe the way he holds his large, shaven head; the posture of an animal in defensive attack). Susan Engel is vitriolically dislikeable as the snooty dean..”

John Peter, SUNDAY TIMES

“Yet the rewards of the evening are considerable, and in Dominic Cooke’s production they are enhanced by a strong cast. Emma Fielding’s performance is informed at every stage by intelligence; David Horovitch and – in particular – Susan Engel rise above the limitations of their parts; there are excellent cameos from Mida Hamada as the Nuyorican student and Fred Ridgeway as a security guard with a conscience.

“Emma Fielding plays the Dean of Students at a college in tranquil Vermont. When a black student is subjected to an anonymous hate campaign, she naturally has an important role to play, but gradually reveals that her feelings are more complicated than the liberal pieties she is duty-bound to maintain. Rebecca Gilman’s play….is highly watchable”

John Gross, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

“Gilman is well-served by Dominic Cooke’s tight, focused production and by Emma Fielding’s outstanding performance as Sarah. The nervous flickers behind her eyes and the tension of her body language belies her laundered efficiency and implies from the start that her liberalism is only skin-deep. David Horovitch as a posturing faculty boss, Robert Bowman as Sarah’s deceitful lover and Susan Engel as a status -conscious establishment toady all reinforce the impression that liberal arts colleges are part of the racial problem rather than the solution”.

Michael Billington, THE GUARDIAN

“Sarah Matthews is Dean of Students at Belmont College in WASP-ish Vermont. Her kind-hearted but tongue-tied efforts to secure a scholarship for a student who insists he’s Nuyorican not Hispanic, then to deal with a series of racist letters sent to one of the school’s few black pupils, lead Sarah to reveal a shameful secret: after a recent, intimidating experience working at a multi-ethnic Chicago college, she now thinks black people are lazy, stupid and scary. As Belmont’s staff develop ever more mealy-mouthed strategies to cope with this eruption of racism on campus, a picture emerges of a hermetically sealed community of white liberals wringing hands over how to be seen to be fair to their “students of colour”.

Bryan Logan,INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

“…this is a drama that will send audiences arguing into the night, and one that cries out to be seen”.

Charles Spencer, DAILY TELEGRAPH