FringeNYC 2013: Kemble's Riot

Review by Aimee Todoroff · August 17, 2013

When I saw that Kemble’s Riot, the brilliant play written by the late Adrian Bunting, was being presented at this year’s FringeNYC Festival, I was thrilled. Last year, I was lucky enough to catch the excellent production mounted at the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe Festival by Zincbar Performing Arts.

The experience was a rousing exploration of art, the class system and the power of the common man when united behind a singular cause. It could not be a more timely production to bring to NYC, when Broadway ticket prices are soaring beyond most people’s reach and we’re still dissecting the legacy of the Occupy Movement.

Focusing on the true story of the Old Price Riots, the three months long conflict that arose in 1908 when theatre producer and leading man John Kemble raised the ticket prices to his newly renovated Covent Street Theatre, the play quickly asks the audience to choose sides.  In a clever use of audience participation, two protestors are placed in the house, waiting, along with the rest of the audience, for Kemble and his sister, the great actress Sarah Siddons, to perform Macbeth. Both protestors are well-versed theatre lovers with opposing points of view. One argues that Kemble has over-stepped his authority when he raised the prices, that the new subscription system creates a class divide, and that "affordable theatre is an inalienable right." The other theatre lover, a starry-eyed fan, argues that artists deserve to be fairly compensated for their craft, that the small increase in prices is a sacrifice for improvements in the theatre, and most importantly, that the disruptions are preventing her from enjoying the play! The audience is then asked to take part in the riots in the house as Kemble and Siddons try to carry on with their play on stage.

Rolemop, the company producing Kemble’s Riot for the FringeNYC Festival has taken some liberties with the script that worked so well when I last saw it. In an apparent attempt to make the play more accessible to NY audiences, the actors placed in the house, whose function it is to lead the riots, have been replaced by a pair of stand-up comedians. Both present themselves as a “typical” New Yorker, with Matt Baetz playing heavily into the neurotic type and Maria Schultz describing herself as a “reformed Jewish American Princess.” Their improvised volleys are quite funny, but they spend more time trading barbs with each other than they do trying to get the audience on one side or the other. Inexplicably, they seem to be living in the present, while the actors playing Kemble and Siddons on stage are clearly living in 1908. It’s an incongruity that takes the audience out of the moment, and while it’s fun to watch these world-class comedians dissect each other, it does nothing to move the action of the play forward, and the riots lose their urgency.

A large portion of the play has been cut, trimming the run time down to an abrupt 45 minutes.  We lose some major plot points, and the episodes of violence which justified so much of the action are toned down. In addition to losing text, we also lose opportunities to question the point of view of each side, and we lose the all important rising action, leading the audience to wonder how a row between two needy, insecure possibly ex-lovers is supposed to escalate into a full-fledged riot. But what this production lacks in teeth, it makes up for in silliness, with an interruption by an accordion player and a chance to throw brightly colored balls at the stage.

The Old Price Riots are a fascinating chapter in history for anyone who loves theatre or who is interested in the relationship between art and the public. The full play gives a satisfying exploration of class, protest and the rights of both the artist and the audience. This production gives us the Cliff’s Notes version.