Come on Up to the House is a fifteen-minute
BBC radio play. Like The First King of Mars, it’s performed
by PC as a long monologue, despite indications that he’s speaking to
someone. The tone and subject matter,
however, couldn’t be more different.
This
play is part of a program that put on dramatized writings based on Tom Waits
songs (since, once again, this is radio and has no visuals, Waits is pictured
in lieu of PC.) I’m not familiar with
much of Tom Waits’s music, and apart from the brief clips played during the
play, I’ve never heard “Come on Up to the House.” Essentially, the story is a one-sided
conversation in which a man confesses his fears, struggles, and heartaches to
someone unspecified in the middle of the night.
We get hints of his personal tragedies, his herculean efforts to drag
himself through the day, and his musings on the nature of grief.
Obviously,
PC plays our unnamed man. We get more of
a sense of how he is rather than who he is. He’s a very thoughtful man who really pays attention
to words and their connotations – he mulls over his word choices with
fastidious caution. He’s been “getting
by” and pretending to be all right for far too long, and he’s finally hit his
breaking point. There’s pain inside him
that simply has to be given voice.
PC’s
performance is very heartfelt, very
affecting. I’m reminded of his roles in Accused (that oppressive sense of being
wrung out by grief) and The Field of
Blood (that hurts-behind-the-eyes physical and spiritual exhaustion.) As with those performances, the relative lack of emotion in his voice only serves
to make the emotional content more poignant.
You get the sense that he may not have many tears left in him, but that
hasn’t lightened his load at all. The
writing is beautifully sincere, and PC delivers it wonderfully.
I’ve
always loved the interaction between stories and music. I think it’s fascinating to listen to a song
inspired by a movie or a book, I enjoy discovering poetic homages within lyrics,
I appreciate how a well-chosen song can elevate a film or television scene, and
here, I really like the way the emotional resonance of a song is transposed
into a performed story.
Accent Watch
Scottish.
Recommend?
In
General
– I think I would. It’s quite
melancholy, but it’s written with such loveliness and grace. Worth a listen, I’d say.
PC-wise – Yes. PC has a great talent for these sorts of
quietly-heartbroken characters.
Warnings
Nothing
of note.
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