The Orderly
Herald Theatre | Reviewed by Imogen Neale

I HAVE AN aversion to most things medieval. I think it was Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath that did it for me, that and the fact it took me two whole days to decipher one, rather lackluster, paragraph. Thus, when I waked into the foyer of the Herald Theatre and found myself surrounded by all things medieval and old-English like, including men in tights, I felt, immediately, that I was in for a sixty minute reminder of why I never took that branch of English literature study any further. Unfortunately, however, as much as I may dislike the entire Medieval ‘lets play dress up and pretend to fight’ reenactment routine, it is a very strong feature, if not entire reason for being, for The Orderly.

Part MA submission, part poem, part autobiography and part post-suicide tribute to a man he once knew, it would be fair to say that the play, as it appears today, is a narrative, that despite its many revisions and reformations, is still in the process of coming together; a patchwork quilt still being built.

Experience would suggest that narratives that wear such an incompleteness, openly, are exasperating, like a loaded sentence that never manages to reach its full stop, you are kept there waiting, guessing, left to the eccentricities of your own imagination. A task, depending on your creative bent and willingness to work for your entertainment, can be either highly satisfying or highly disappointing. With regards to The Orderly, however, such openness, works. Why? Primarily because the plays lead character, Pete, who is surprise surprise, the orderly in question, is involved in the very same process; gathering fragments and themes from his life, putting them out in front of him and figuring out what happens when you try and weave them together. Like; what happens when you bring you reenactment sword to work and brandish it, albeit playfully, in the air? Like, what happens when you take three hours to make a bed because the bed has become a staging post, the room a battle ground, the people trudging down the corridors, Vikings and Romans out for blood? What happens when you crash the parts of who you are, parts normally kept apart by time of day, people you are around, the clothes you are wearing and the mindset you’re in, together? Do you create a whole or cause introspective carnage?

The two warriors – who Pete steps forward into during the play – a reenactment of a reenactment – speak to this, the plays central theme; how many parts of you are there are why do you live them apart? For Pete, we are left feeling that the result is not a positive one, that maintaining two Pete-parts the very thing that keeps him complete – a work self that does what it needs to do and a social self that does what it wants.

The factor that causes Pete to contemplate bringing his private into public and hence his public into his private, is Janet; a fellow re-enacter who is a patient in the hospital where Pete works. She asks him to bring his new sword to work, to show her. By capitulating he risks other people realizing that the assumptions they had made about his character; diligent, obedient and stable, were just that; their own assumptions.

It does not matter that we do not meet Janet; it is her role, as both catalyst and destination that is important. As I have mentioned she is the catalyst because she is the first one to suggest to Pete that both his identities; orderly and warrior (roles that, as we discover, are actually one in the same in so much as they take duty, responsibility and servitude to be their guiding principles) can be simultaneously lived. However, she is also the destination; Pete carries his sword toting bag with him as he does his rounds so that, when all the beds are made, he may finally proceed to her room. The bags presence on the stage, the sword poking out proudly at the audience, reminds us that Pete is in the process of going somewhere to meet someone, a fact that the intercom interjections – ‘Pete, where the bloody hell are you’ – and the other orderlies appearances – only serve to highlight.

The play is very brave, an eighty-minute monologue that never tiers – and Mike Downey must be commended for managing to find a way to bring such a loaded line of personal and sociopolitical questioning to life. My reservations, which I’m sure this review has signposted, are that I am convinced this play could be and do so much more. As it sits currently, to be crude but clear, it is a 7 out of 10. It could be, due to Mike’s acting ability and the narratives potential, at least a 9, perhaps a 10, out of 10. The reason it’s not, and this has nothing to do with my aversion to Medieval muck-about, I swear, is that Mike spends a little too long on material that doesn’t matter as much; the calls to arms, the crossing of the channels, the historical flashbacks. Yes, you could argue that the reenactments are a vital part of the play, plunging the audience deep into the imagination of a reenacter. And yes, you could also argue that the plays natural audience – reenacters, historians, English literature professors, gamers – probably love the play precisely because it does, respectfully, put a little of their world on the stage, in the public, for all to see. You could. But I’m not going to because I believe that a little often achieves a lot, as the sword fight Pete has with himself – one minute Viking, one minute Roman – an inspired little number fully flush with fancy fighting footwork – demonstrates. Furthermore, it’s not that the pieces where Pete comes forward and stages his reenactments are bad, it’s just that they aren’t great, and the rest of the play, without a doubt, is.

So – in a nutshell, I’d say watch this space, I think given time The Orderly will come back to fight a bigger and getter battle and, not only will it win but it will conquer the audience, gloriously!