Frozen

Bryony Lavery’s Frozen is a dark re-imagining of Little Red Riding Hood, in which a serial killer snatches 10 year old Rhona on the way to her grandmother’s house. The play also tells three other stories: the mother’s, the killer’s and the psychologist’s. A lecture by Agnetha, an American psychologist, provides the skeleton of the play. “Serial Killing, a Forgivable Act”, is about her research into “the arctic waste that is the criminal mind”. While in the UK, she studies a Brit serial killer, Ralph, to help prove her controversial hypothesis that childhood abuse can actually change the structure of the brain, effectively wiping out the area that creates remorse and empathy for others. Rosalind Cressy gives a sympathetic portrayal as Agnetha, successfully capturing her brilliant but troubled mind, her wry wit and her crippling panic attacks. Nancy is first seen awaiting Rhona’s return from her grandmother. Her happiness is soon destroyed when Rhona disappears but Nancy keeps hope alive by founding FLAME, an organisation to find missing children. Years later when Rhona’s body is found, she turns FLAME into a vigilante organisation that publishes the location of sex offenders. Finally she bravely visits Ralph and this meeting, together with the gap year Taoist wisdom of her other daughter and a brief life-affirming sexual fling, helps her to regain her life. Dorothy Lawrence is deeply moving as Nancy, convincing us of this ordinary Northern mother’s emotional journey from hope through devastation to some kind of belated final accommodation with her ruined life. We are spared no terrifying detail as we watch Ralph plan and execute his abductions with cold, military precision. Jack James has the unenviable task of reversing the Frankenstein story and making a human being out of a monster. His oily, often despicable creation is uncomfortable to watch, yet “mesmerising like a rattle snake”, as Agnetha describes his character. Finally, he manages to persuade us that there is a shred of redeemable humanity in this monster. Frozen stands or falls on the strength of the performances and this cast rise superbly to the challenge of three emotionally harrowing roles. There is barely a false note in the whole production and director Sonia Fraser and her design team have brought out the depth of emotion, intelligence and wit of Lavery’s play, written in 1998. This revival raises many relevant and challenging questions, in particular whether serial killing is a “sin or a symptom”, and it deserves to be seen. - Rick Perrins What’s On Stage website

Paedophilia is a sad but harsh reality that we are constantly faced with today. Bryony Lavery's play Frozen may have premiered back in 1998 with the Birmingham Rep but it could not be more topical and poignant in today's current climate, particularly with the recent announcement that the Portuguese police have closed the case in the search for missing Madeleine McCann. Lavery does anything but skirt around the issue as she delves in and goes straight for the jugular, in perhaps the most honest depiction of child abduction that I have seen on either screen or stage. Three Loners stand on stage: the mother of an abducted child, a Paedophile and a criminal psychologist. They each tell their story as the play spans twenty years; considering the impact on the family left behind, the mind of the perpetrator and the reasons behind their crimes as Lavery explores the difference between mental illness and evil - if in fact there is a difference. Director, Sonia Fraser, lets the narrative of this play speak for itself. With minimal set and props, she allows the story to simply be told by the immensely talented cast who bring these characters to life. Dorothy Lawrence's Nancy is both fragile and strong as a mother who has lost her youngest daughter in the cruellest of ways. Despite never physically seeing her family, they are conjured up on stage through the love and tenderness with which she describes them, making the disappearance of one of them all the more painful to endure. There was a tangible feeling of empathy for Nancy amongst the audience which was matched with a feeling of loathing for Jack James's remarkable performance as Ralph. Physically nervy, yet mentally calculated, James frighteningly brings to life the logistics of being a paedophile. His almost smug exterior with his darting eyes and fiddling fingers leaves one feeling extremely uncertain as he shares his exploits, sparing you no detail. However, Frozen is not black and white. Lavery introduces many areas of grey as criminal psychologist Agnetha (Rosalind Cressy) uses Ralph as part of a study to examine the criminal mind; arguing that you are not born evil and that both physical and mental trauma at a young age can have astounding consequences. This concept is difficult to digest. We need someone or something to blame for the atrocities in life. To have someone's behaviour explained; painting them as a victim also is difficult and painful to swallow but something that all the characters, as well as the audience are forced to consider. Surprisingly, considering the subject matter, Frozen is not all doom and gloom. There is a thread of humour throughout the play, finding comedy in the darkest of moments, reminding us that things can't stay frozen forever, eventually they must thaw. REMOTEGOAT.COM