REVIEW: 100 PAINTINGS by Jack Stacey at The Hope Theatre 17 May - 4 June 2022

‘This is a story with a lot of humour, heart and hope’ ★★★★

I don’t like post-apocalyptic stories. I find them disheartening and hopeless. Until now.

100 Paintings takes place in a city hotel after an unspecified event has emptied the city centre. A young artist (CONRAD WILLIAMSON) has an arrangement to provide 100 paintings for the hotel within 3 days to pay his and his mother’s bills and he is trying to work furiously under less than ideal conditions. His mother keeps interrupting him and people enter his room (faces covered with gas masks) for different reasons.

Much happens in this room, keeping a solid pace, and from the start I was enthralled. The humour is raucous with characters who are immensely watchable. Each of the women bring clarity (and confusion) to the artist’s dreams and existential purpose.

The artist’s mother (DENISE STEPHENSON) is immensely watchable and reminds me of the heyday of Ab Fab, with her flare and immense self-concern. Of course, she loves her son and wants to support him so, as would be expected, she provides for him in many ways, including the unexpected.

The incisive and eloquent sex worker (not prostitute)-turned-muse (JULIET GARRICKS) is chosen by the artist’s mother to provide inspiration for her son. Eva’s character is a brilliant addition and though I’m not convinced it was part of the original plan to have an older Black woman play the role, judging from the ambiguity of the play script, Garricks is a wonderful choice for the role. She adds much gravitas, appeal, and humour to the character’s arc in the story, and an extra dimension that may not have been part of the initial blueprint.

The surprise stranger, Beatriz (JANE CHRISTIE), comes into the artist’s life with her own intriguing reason to be in that hotel room, which is a story within the overall story, revealed slowly. Intriguingly, there is an immediate dislike taken to her by the artist’s mother, often referring to the size of Beatriz’s head.

There was a strange video projection as an attempt to give the sense of the post-apocalyptic period; I wasn’t so enamoured. However, the use of the props, from the artist’s easel and art cart, to the clothes line of art hanging across the stage, provided a physical sense of being in an artist's space.

The artist, never named, takes his work seriously though he lacks vision and motivation in this difficult environment. Despite some longer speeches he makes, particularly to his mother, his character is quite likeable and accessible (even if he has Mummy issues) and the way Williamson plays the role makes you root for his success. Unlike many plays which use Art as its trope, even as it filled the hotel room, it didn’t take over the story. The humour, outlandish characters and clever lines notwithstanding, there is a message at the heart of the story about life purpose.

This is a story with a lot of humour, heart and hope. It has changed my view on what is possible in a post-apocalyptic world.

100 PAINTINGS by Jack Stacey

The Hope Theatre 17 May - 4 June 2022

Box Office https://www.thehopetheatre.com/productions/100-paintings/

Performed by Conrad Williamson, Denise Stephenson, Jane Christie, Juliet Garricks

Directed by Zachary Hart

Produced by Jane Christie, Mihnea Savuica, Jack Stacey

Stage manager: Leonara Nicholson

Set designer: Zsofia Sarosi

Lighting designer: Jasmine Williams

Sound designer: Jack Whitney

Costume designer: Zsofia Sarosi

Production photographer: Jack Whitney

Reviewed by Mariam Mathew