Review: LIFE WITH OSCAR, Arcola Theatre
For a one person show to sustain interest, it needs to have a gripping narrative and a versatile performer, and that is certainly on offer at the Arcola Theatre, where Nick Cohen is performing Life With Oscar. Taking the story from his childhood memories listening to stories from under the dining table to his attempts to get his film project off the ground in Hollywood, Cohen (also the writer) structures the piece as something of a homage to the figure of Oscar on the statuette – or should that be Emilio?
Where many solo performers rely mainly on the voice, Cohen is as adept at creating character from movement and gesture as he is with changing his voice. The show also makes good use of sound and light and even includes a costume change. The strong opening section introduces us to his family, performers all and with contacts in the film industry. From his small-time rep actor father to the visiting film director, we believe in them through the power of story-telling as well as the deft switches of character. In a tight 70 mins (or rather longer on Press Night after an unexplained 15 mins wait on the stairs for a late start) we learn about the travails of trying to get a film project financed.
Working in the downstairs studio at the Arcola, Cohen has to cope with a long thin room, but manages to draw in the audience on all three sides through constant movement and occasional piercing eye contact with individuals. He knows how to manage this contact, sometimes asking questions of particular audience members but then quickly moving on. He is perhaps less successful when welcoming the audience as they arrive, addressing us as an audience of Oscar nominees, although this conceit seems then to be dropped for most of the performance – and the faux greetings to the audience are repetitive for those who are first through the door.
When he moves to Hollywood, the characters – all based on real people – become ever more gross and extreme. He is good at setting the scene through descriptions of interiors and endows the grotesques in his story with repetitive phrases or movements that help us to follow the narrative, although his memories of childhood remain the strongest part of the play. This is no story of ultimate fame and success in Hollywood, but a gradual realisation of the many possibilities of film-making, many of which can sit outside the studio and producer-led industry in what the audience now know should be properly known as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río Porciúncula…
Life With Oscar is an entertaining if salutary story of too much money and too little in the way of ethical behaviour, told by an actor who is expert at creating character and drawing in an audience.
*** Three Stars
Reviewed by Chris Abbott
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