This was the third of just three productions Janie and I saw together in The Orange Tree Room (the original Orange Tree above the pub) before that super space closed down. For just a short while, the Orange Tree ran the purpose built theatre and the room.
Of the three, I for some reason I only retained the “programme” (sheet of paper) for The Belle.
This so frustrating, because this production of The Walls was superb – we were spellbound by it. But sadly (unlike Saigon Rose) it doesn’t seem to have been reviewed – or at least not by any resources available on-line.
I have managed, by detective work, to determine that the play we saw is a translation of Las Paredes by Griselda Gambaro.
By Sara Facio (Revista Argentina 1970) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
I have managed to find a review of a more recent production of this play in DC – click here or below:
That review gives you a feel for the play and the production we saw, which tried (with a very limited budget and space) to create that increasingly claustrophobic feeling and did so very well.
I wish I could record who was in it and who directed/designed the production at the Orange Tree Room because it really was excellent in our book.
Perhaps the Orange Tree has an archive into which I can delve at some point.
Janie and I saw this production just before we set off for our first big holiday, to China and Bali. I remember we talked about this play/production a lot and for a long time.
Of all the leaflets to mislay…but perhaps they had run out of leaflets. The Orange Tree Room was on its way out by then; what a pity.
If anyone reading this posting has any information about the production, please let me know through the comments or message system.
Postscript: Newspapers.com allowed me to find the following clipping from The Guardian – appropriately with a typo in the second word of the main text!
Of the three plays Janie and I went to see at the Orange Tree Room together, before that “above the pub” bit of the Orange Tree empire closed down, this is the only one for which I still have the “programme” – i.e. sheet of paper:
Ian Angus Wilkie of NewsRevue fame once again found his way into the cast; he must have found favour with the Orange Tree folk back then and for good reason.
I was gutted that Ian Angus Wilkie didn’t list NewsRevue in his recent relevant experience – it had only been about a year before – perhaps less ( I have a feeling he did Edinburgh or Christmas that 1992 year). How could he hold back on reporting that career highlight?
All I wrote in my log for this one was that I thought it was a very good play/production – which was the way I felt about all the things we saw in that Orange Tree Room…but in truth this was the least memorable of the three, for me.
The “programme” – or rather the single sheet of printed A4 you tended to get at the Orange Tree Room – went missing for this show, which is a shame.
It was one of three plays we went to see in that room above the Orange Tree Pub, which they kept going as a second venue for a while but stopped using I think later that year.
This was Janie’s and my first visit to The Orange Tree together…my first visit there full stop.
I cannot reconstruct the whole cast and creatives list, but we can ascertain that the cast included:
Michael Higgs;
Henrietta Garden;
Mairéad Carty;
Ian Angus Wilkie.
Rachel Kavanaugh directed.
I remember really liking this play and the production and really liking The Orange Tree Room. It reminded me a bit of The Gate, a small fringe venue of which I was already fond.
Did they really make more money turning that prime space into hotel rooms?…
Hounslow Chronicle Glass Of Water 08 May 1997, Thu The Hounslow Chronicle (Hounslow, London, England) Newspapers.com
