Review: BEING SEEN, OSO Arts Centre

Photo credit: Mike Martin

Direct from Chicago for a limited London run of one week only is Richard Gustin’s comedy, Being Seen. This two-hander follows the journey of two nameless characters, simply known as ‘The Actor’ and ‘The Director’, during an exceedingly long one-to-one audition workshop within which The Actor dazzles and entertains The Director with larger than life renditions of various scenes in the hope of joining his theatre company, before descending into an array of personal anecdotes and confessions that ultimately bring the two characters very close together, especially considering they started the play as strangers.

The cast features two very energetic stage presences. Kelly Anne Clark brings absolutely everything she has to the role of The Actor, owning the stage with plenty of comedic timing which has the audience hooked with side-splitting laughter throughout. Meanwhile, 14-time Midwest Emmy winner Will Clinger brings a powerfully mysterious presence to the snooty character of The Director.

The multi-talented Gustin not only writes Being Seen, but also directs and produces it too, making many interesting directorial choices. One of the most striking choices is having the character of The Director deliver his lines from the back of the auditorium and only enter the stage for the last 15 minutes of the show. Whilst this adds an air of mystery during the opening of the audition and certainly helps transport us into the mindset of The Actor, it does start to drag on a little bit too long, leaving audiences craning their neck to the back of the theatre in order to see Clinger’s hidden performance. Due to this, The Director starts to feel more like a voice in The Actor’s head, turning Being Seen into basically a one-woman show as his presence is so absent from the stage itself. With this in mind, the play would have benefitted from a slightly more imaginative staging arrangement, such as traverse or in-the-round, to help keep the mysterious distance and blocking whilst still allowing audiences to enjoy the performances of both Clinger and Clark more clearly.

The script itself is pumped with humour, which makes up for the incredibly simple plot line. The play is written in two acts, with the second act an elongation of the first, without any additions of new characters or locations. Due to this, it would have been a lot more successful as a one-act play with a bit more pacing to blend the two acts together, streamlining some of the more repetitious sections from the script to allow for a smoother performance arc.

Clearly, Being Seen prioritises creating a realistic setting over packing the plot with gripping action points, yet the use of naturalism is certainly interestingly executed. In terms of the way the characters are written, naturalism is simply oozing from the script itself, yet the line delivery is, at times, questionable as it lacks that believable and authentic human touch to prioritise always giving the most exaggerated, unrealistic pronunciation combined with the largest gestures and physicality possible.

A slow-paced comedy with striking theatrical choices and an electric cast.

*** Three stars

Reviewed by: Heidi Downing

Being Seen plays at OSO Arts Centre until 9 March, with further info here.