‘Paulasville’ - House on a Hill? A city gone down it, more like!
‘Paulasville’ is not about a house on a hill, but a city gone down it. This is Zion Young Actors Company’s debut performance and I think they’re gonna grow us.
This atmospheric gritty production starts off well, with good audience interaction and the visual effects from 3 projectors and smoke machine all adding to the effect. There’s an excellent performance from the Sanitary Department of the company that runs the city. Which makes you think that these guys are putting heart and soul into their parts and having fun.
Then it seemed to lose its momentum, towards the end, that captured me from scene 1. It looked as though the beginning was well worked on, with the end looking rushed. Some of the actors were quieter and, with people eating crisps, made me wonder what was going on. I would have liked to have seen total blackout in 1 or 2 scene changes and a rat in the rubbish. If the stage would have been larger then some of the props could have been left on stage in the shadows, so the pace could have kept increasing without interruption. Which, I think, was the idea behind Act II.
They need to work with masks more effectively to bring them alive. For the body language and head movements were more reminiscent of crash-test dummies. Instead of looking like police, I thought they were bank robbers.
Still, it was enjoyable to watch and I didn’t look at my watch once. The fact that I don’t wear one, has nothing to do with it. I wasn’t even yawning or scratching, which showed, that for a couch potato like me, it must have caught my interest throughout.
‘Paulasville’ is running every night at the Zion Arts Centre, Stretford Rd, Hulme, until Saturday night.