Review Poison

Tim Gopsill admires a drama where a divorced couple comes together over the grave of a child, but he finally cannot warm to the play.

Poison
by Lot Vekemans
Translated by Rena Vergano

Love And Other Toxins
https://www.orangetreetheatre.co.uk/

A middle-aged couple, a woman and man, meet up after nearly a decade of separation which started shortly after their son died. 

The man is known only as "He", the woman as "She".

“We are a man and a woman who lost a son, and then each other,” he says to her. “Who lost a son and then themselves and then each other,” she corrects.

He assents, which is the only thing they can agree on as they take their faltering steps to rebuild their love.

Poison is an 80-minute two-hander, examing the fall out of a marriage break up, acted with precision by Claire Price, a blonde sarky ex-wife and Zubin Varla as the  husband who previously walked out on her.

The couple find themselves in a reception room of the cemetery where their young son is buried. The discovery of toxic chemicals in the ground are now disturbing his supposedly final resting place.

The young boy's remains, along with those of others, have to be exhumed and reinterred and his parents have arrived to discuss the situation with cemetery officials.

This is, literally, the poison in the title – but the residue of suffering that killed their love is the real poison in the play itself

Written by Dutch writer Lot Vekemans with English translation by Rena Vergano, Poison has been an international success, playing in many languages all over the world, including New York, Berlin and, of course, The Netherlands.

It's concise and focussed, consisting solely of the conversation  between the former spouses,

Simon Daw's set is minimal: two upholstered benches, a coffee machine and a water cooler with mostly full-on lighting from Mark Doubleday.
 
The drama is driven solely by the two former partners' painful conversation, although there is a possible deception involved.

The only movement comes from the couple’s desperate gestures, but Paul Miller’s direction maintains the tension – relieved now and then by the odd nervous laugh.

There's probably a lot of truth in the reactions. The ending, when it comes, has an inevitability, yet beforehand hadn't seemed certain. 

This would make be a wonderful radio play with listeners forming their own picture of the couple in anguish.

However, despite the fine, detailed acting, it is also repetitive, with, deliberately,  the same verbal and physical expressions repeated, and it does become tedious and distancing.

As a chronicle of unrelieved grief,  it could have torn the heart, but in the end it gets an amber light.

Review The Lottery Of Love

The Lottery Of Love
by Pierre Marivaux
Translated by John Fowles

Love In The Dock
https://www.orangetreetheatre.co.uk/

Marivaux is a lesser-known literary figure this side of the Channel. Even if his sentimental novel La Vie De Marianne had an influence on the development of the novel in England and he wrote more than 30 plays, many of which broke the mould in 18th century France.

The Orange Tree is now presenting the world premiere of John Fowles's 1984 translation of the French playwright's best known play, written in 1730,  Le Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard, renamed in Fowles's version The Lottery Of Love.

Fowles transferred the story of a somewhat reluctant would-be man and wife foiled by their own ruses to Jane Austen's England where indeed a lottery for money, as well as literary trials' and tribulations" for prospective marriage partners, also flourished.  

For Marivaux, life and money had been somewhat of a lottery, his wife's dowry lost in a disastrous investment in the New World, then her early death after childbirth.

The Lottery Of Love deals with life's viccissitudes, cruelty and economics under a sophisticated veneer of  social comedy centring on Sylvia  (Dorothea Myer-Bennett), an independent-minded young woman who fears the marital alliance her father has arranged.

On hearing her prospective husband Richard is coming to visit her for the first time, and with the agreement of her father, she and her maid servant Louisa (Claire Lams) swap roles  to view and put on probation the future spouse's qualities (Ashley Zhangazha).

However it turns out, she herself will be a victim of her suitor's similar ruse. While both of them become the playthings, albeit in benevolent interests, of the inside epistolary dealings of her father (Pip Donaghy) and naval officer brother Martin (Tam Williams), with out-of-sight Richard's father. 

Le Jeu de L'Amour et du Hasard was revolutionary in not setting up two united lovers against the world overcoming obstacles.

It starts from a woman alone reversing social norms, saying no to any marriage unless she feels secure with a husband who will cherish her. In fact, sbe almost adopts the forensic probing of a prosecution lawyer in her reasoning.

In director Paul Miller's delicate confection, the cast conduct an intricate verbal minuet where multiple disguises and a farcical comedy of manners collide. Designer Simon Daw keeps it simple with single upside down roses and gently flashing tea lights suspended from the ceiling above the in-the-round stage.

There's symmetry but also violent disruption in The Lottery Of Love and we couldn't help remembering that by the end of the same century it was written, France itself was riven by a violent revolution. There's plenty to cherish in this handsome version of Marivaux's play but much of the underlying violence and cruelty feels sucked out of it.

Maybe it's because the Orange Tree Theatre space itself doesn't lend itself to French farce's slamming doors as the two lovers disguised as their own servants (there, we've given it away!) enter and exit.

Even so Myer-Bennett does have a touching vulnerability along with a blue-stocking control of her vocabulary. Zhangazha also shines as a deliberately slightly stolid but good-hearted suitor and master who finds his disguise more punishing and painful than he first expected. 

Fowles goes through the literary houses in his translation flirting with Shakespearean comedies, Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Rivals and even inserting a touch of Dickens in his characterisation of valet John Brass (Keir Charles).

It's a delightful, very pretty production but we felt the darkness lurking beneath was a little too lightly mined. Mind you, this version does have the insurance of Sylvia's brother Martin's brooding, caddish presence, if not absolute actions, of a villain in the shape of slightly dishevelled Tam Williams.

At the same time, its flurry of love, chance, misunderstandings and trickery with a happy ending for master, mistress and servants does work its magic and we give it a mixed posy of amber/green. 
 

Review Sheppey

Sheppey
by Somerset Maugham

Jesus Wept
 https://www.orangetreetheatre.co.uk/

It seems Charlie Chaplin's barber in 1940 movie The Great Dictator was at least third, possibly fourth in line, in introducing a barber with a revolutionary streak. His own brother Sydney before that had created a barber who takes on an oppressive regime. And Charlie Chaplin himself settled out of court with a writer who claimed plagiarism.

But in 1933 Somerset Maugham wrote his last play bringing to the stage Sheppey (John Ramm in this production, while originally, some would say, miscast with Ralph Richardson directed by John Gielgud).  Sheppey's a Camberwell barber in this deceptively gentle piece with a razor sharp subtext.

Sheppey's only vice, apart from the more than occasional drink in a neighbouring pub, is buying a ticket produced by printers for the Free Irish State-government-sanctioned Irish Sweepstakes.

Although not spelt out in the play, this was ostensibly raising money for Irish hospitals but was eventually exposed as often lining private pockets.The sweepstake was illegal in Britain and the United States but the authorities turned a blind eye, even so far as allowing the results to  appear in newspapers.

Well, Sheppey has one more barber shop vice, although some would call it a commercial virtue,  persuading customers to buy a German hair restorer, sold at the Jermyn Street premises of his boss (Geff Francis) where he dreams of one day becoming a partner. Promising a medical miracle, he's got a neat line in salesman patter to persuade gullible hair-challenged clients to part with their cash. 

His other modest ambition is to lodge his family in a cottage on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. A happy-go-lucky long-term employee, he nevertheless finds himself troubled when asked to be a witness in a Police Court case where he suddenly develops a social conscience, believing the assortment of criminals he sees in the dock being victims of circumstance during an economic slump rather than villains.

When his Irish Sweepstakes' ticket comes up with the princely sum of over £8,000, he, perhaps unwisely for an illicit operation, allows himself to receive publicity in the press but also determines not to keep the winnings for personal profit but to follow the example of Jesus, who as he points out was only a carpenter, just as he is a hairdresser, and distribute them to the needy in his local parish.

He gives a home to petty thief Cooper (Tom Peters) who inspired his channelling of money for relief of the poor. Prostitute Bessie LeGros (Dickie Beau  giving an added frisson to the female role), his drinking partner, also enters the household - is her name a sly dig at Hollywood actress Joan Crawford, originally Lucille LeSueur?

Yet Sheppey's plan goes horribly wrong when his prospective son-in-law, county council teacher and aspiring politician, Ernie (Josh Dylan), with a very different view of community, and daughter Florrie (Katie Moore), who has quit her job in the City to be married, dragging along Sheppey's wife Ada (Sarah Ball), conspire with family doctor (Brendan Hooper), presumably a pre-NHS panel doctor, who makes it clear his motive is commercial, profit rather than welfare.    

Sheppey has the construction of an old fashioned play - it may move a little slowly for some tastes now  - but with very modern concerns and a twist in the tale late on worthy of the much later musical Cabaret in Paul Miller's production.

John Ramm makes a convincing Sheppey, almost coming across as a more benevolent Alf Garnett in his rhythms and justifications.  Katie Moore as the upwardly mobile typist daughter Florrie nicely combines lurking vulnerability with  steely determination that nothing will get in her way. Sarah Ball's Ada manages the tricky balance between loving, long suffering wife who still gives way to the plot against her husband without losing our sympathies. .

Director Paul Miller retains the three-act structure in a careful production, aided by Max Pappenheim's sparingly and effectively used soundscape.Simon Daw's design neatly conveys the tiled barber shop with advertisement billboards above the in-the round stage area, while a subtle use of phrenology gives added resonance in the second and third act set.

There's a touch of the supernatural reminiscent of HG Wells's short stories combined with the sharp satire of Saki, while other literary references are explicit.

Certainly the audience doesn''t need to know the history of Irish Sweepstakes to be drawn into a secular fable of gambling, greed and then altruism brought down. Even so,  it becomes far more double-edged and reflective with an understanding of the subtext of 1930s' world politics, economics and possibly the abuse of parish-based mental asylums when national public scandals rise to the surface.

This is a well-cast seemingly simple piece of a certain pre-World War Two genre,  but also accompanied by a more complex undertow. It's an amber/green light for a precise production with a sting in its tale.

Review The Philanderer

The Philanderer

by Bernard Shaw

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

www.orangetree.co.uk

Poor Leonard (an elegantly gawky bearded hipster Rupert Young). He's had his wicked way with two women. Cool blonde widow Grace Tranfield (svelte Helen Bradbury), daughter of a drama critic (meticulous old fogey Mark Tandy), and fiery redhead Julia Craven (curvy Dorothea Myer-Bennett) whose Dad is retired Colonel (Michael Lumsden).

And now poor Leonard is forced to plot to break off at least one relationship and his conduct over the second seems more than dubious, leaving a lot to be desired.

Or maybe Leonard's not so poor - we never learn the state of his finances. But in the cold light of day he's a pretty nasty piece of work despite a polished, witty literary exterior.

This isn't the latest Netflix, Sky or Amazon boxed set or even a French farce.

This is one of the Plays Unpleasant of Mr G Bernard Shaw (he never liked the "George"), first performed privately in 1905 to avoid the censor. 

Bring to the fore the "New Woman" at a time when women only could divorce if fault was proven or the man, in the words of the play, was a drunkard, criminal or imbecile. Indeed, the seedy profession of private detectives grew out of the courts and divorce cases.

Directed by Paul Miller, with a pitch perfect cast, this is an updated staging of Shaw's early play on a marble tiled-in-the-round stage, simply but cleverly furnished, with a subtle mash up of delicious costumes (designer Simon Daw, costume supervisor Clio Alphas).

Isabel Waller-Bridge provides a light touch but effective score and this three-act play also manages smooth location changes in the manner of the recently-seen I've Been Here Before with two intervals.

Leonard is a  - wait for it, it's a juicy word! - philanderer. That's not philanthropist  - many would say quite the opposite. Philanderer took on the meaning in the 18th century, the era which witnessed the birth of the often "sentimental" British novel for a female market, of a serial womanizer. 

Until then philanderer had the meaning, from the Greek, of "fond of men", according to my internet resources. Perhaps Enlightenment marketeers  realised such a rolling-off-the tongue word was perfect for the bodice rippers devoured in private by ladies in their boudoirs!

As for Leonard, he is a wisecracking but charming vulture who feeds off the women including Sylvia (Paksie Vernon), Julia's decidedly unsentimental younger sister,  who are all of "advanced views" and members of that "cock and hen" (note the order, not hen and cock) society, The Ibsen Club. 

This is a society where Henrik Ibsen is viewed as Superman (there is a glorious well-oiled design joke which we won't spoil). Where every member is required to be equally nominated and guaranteed by a man and woman in the name of equality and a hollow-eyed runner (Joe Idris-Roberts) brings the latest messages. For centuries before "Nordic Noir" hit our screens, another Norwegian ruled the roost. 

And with Dr Paramore (Christopher Staines) who has condemned Grace's retired colonel, a veteran of Indian and Sudan campaigns, to an early death from his eponymously named disease, Shaw can't resist a potshot at one of his favourite subjects, The latest medical scientific theory in the British Medical Journal, this time that of malign microbes This later surely influencing this Monty Python sketch?!

TLT and her vehicle of choice, with the dangerous liaisons' tinted windows hiding Lord-knows-what ;), did wonder though whether this very cleanly designed and acted version of The Philanderer could be more  - well - low down and dirty. Or in the words of journalist Rachel Cooke's programme introduction in another context, could afford to loosen the stays of both women and the vain men.

After all, the origin of Ibsen's A Doll's House, a clear influence, isn't the nicest of stories. According to the play's Wikipedia entry, Ibsen himself even played a role in the real life downfall of the woman writer who inspired it

And the language of money, share dealing, gambling, the court room, the buying and selling of women and even copyright, rather than the language of love, infects The Phlanderer's script. 

Meanwhile Leonard, a Jack Tanner prototype, increasingly watches like a puppet master the domino chaos he sets off. 

Furthermore, the implication by the end is that women can only get their rights as women and as writers  by marrying a male writer and, like the pension of the time endowed in the husband,  a financial portion by supporting the husband's success rather than given their own royalties!

Shaw's lines when characterful debate and rhythm is drained out of them, can lead to accusations of the prolix. And for an audience more used to short attention span current day scripts, there are always occasions where the concentration may lapse during arguments. 

But this production manages to crack Shaw's characterful conversational, debating style, even if the play itself, sometimes a deliberate trot through different literary styles, is not as polished in verbal sparring as, say, the later St Joan.   

While some of Shaw's work is in the public domain in Canada and the USA, the world rights reside with the Society of Authors until 2020. 

We can therefore expect more of the patter of tiny feet of experimental Shaw productions. And also judging from Lawrence After Arabia, portrayals of Shaw himself, long lived from the Victorian times to the late twentieth century. So the Shaw Society may well find itself in demand! 

In the meantime this is a classy, highly enjoyable, clear production of an early work heedfully modernised, from which the audience emerged with smiles on their faces. A green light.

Review French Without Tears

French Without Tears

By Terence Rattigan

Entente Non Cordiale

https://www.orangetreetheatre.co.uk/whats-on/french-without-tears

A group of young gentlemen gather in Villa Miramar in France to learn French for the diplomatic corps entry exams. Coming from a line of toffs himself with a diplomat father and once earmarked for the same career, playwright Terence Rattigan was obviously writing, to cite an old adage "what he knew" in 1936.

And that year was a rum old twelve months for diplomacy.  George V died to be succeeded by Edward VIII who within a few months had abdicated in favour of his brother. Stalinist purges swept the Soviet Union.  France elected a left-wing government.  The Spanish army of Africa rose up against the left wing Spanish Republican government,  Syria gained partial independence from France,  the Italian army marched into Ethiopa,  Japan and Germany signed an anti-communist pact  and  National Socialist Germany reoccupied the Rhineland. 

Still Billy Butlin started his first holiday camp.

And aged 25, Rattigan scored his first theatre success, inspired by his own experiences at a German crammer, after honing an economic  writing technique penning dialogue for quota quickies at Teddington Studios. Luckily for us, this  Hi-De-Hi boarding house school for toffs, distracted by the fairer sex, channels the more frivolous side of this era in a delicious production directed by Paul Miller at the Orange Tree Theatre.

And my God, doe-eyed Diana (Genevieve Gaunt) , an English rose cum Hollywood femme fatale, does cause havoc at the crammer college of M. Maingot (David Whitworth).  As she exercises her own seductive divide-and-rule ruses,  the men tumble for her like diplomats unable to resist the most powerful she-nation.  

Ambassador's son Hon Alan Howard (Alex Bhat), already fluent in French, destined by family for the diplomatic service but a novelist and pacifist by inclination, becomes increasingly embittered. Stoked by Diana, his relations with the more sentimental Kit Neilan (Joe Eyre) and bluff Royal Navy man Commander Bill Rogers (William Belchambers) also become more than strained, eventually coming to blows.

Meanwhile the demure tutor, Jacqueline (Sarah Winter), daughter of the proprietor,  and Kenneth (Patrick MacNamee), Diana's cadet brother, are also victims of unrequited affections. Indeed, apart from M. Maingot and the maid Marianne (perfectly French Laila Alj), only hearty Englishman Brian Curtis (Tom Hanson), with sterling qualities and sex not love on the brain, keeps his head when all about him are losing theirs.  

Like all the best farces, this has more serious undercurrents. Claws lurk beneath the cut glass accents, cod French (anyone else remember Punch's Let's Parler Franglais?), irregular verbs and present definitely tense as Bastille Day arrives with carnival celebrations at the local casino.

Genevieve Gaunt's timing (and claws) as predatory Diana are spot on, raising the temperature and laughs backed by - what else but - French windows.  The sparsely-furnished yet expressive set, from Simon Daw, suits the performance space topped by blackboards fronting the balcony chalked with French exercises.  

The costumes  are satisfyingly recognizable types while the transitions are pleasingly lit by Mark Doubleday to pass time on the in-the-round stage with music by David Shrubsole.   

The male characters all make their mark and throw out their own point of view: Alex Bhat as Alan, seemingly in control but with demagogic tendancies and increasingly frantic behind his copy of Le Monde while Joe Eyre's Kit has an underlying vulnerability; Tom Hanson makes barrel-chested Brian,  for whom it is almost always business as usual, stride through the wreckage; William Belchambers convincingly turns from love struck suitor to bodyguard, while Patrick McNamee embodies nervy Kenneth.

David Whitworth cuts an appropriately professorial figure, donning his Carnival fancy dress with aplomb. Delicate Sarah Winter is  sweetly besotted as daughter "Jack" (from Jacqueline rather than Frère Jacques) who by the end shows her own claws in a Oscar-Wilde-like scene with Diana. Even with sometimes slightly dodgy French accents, there is a charm as the farce unravels.  

Ah yes, and TLT had no idea until her trip to the West Coast of France via the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond that Mr Rattigan had already bagged the red, amber and green light idea as his own in French Without Tears. Listen out for it in the second act! :)

While this may seem like a frothy piece of almost-juvenilia, Rattigan himself was at pains to point out it dealt with matters close to the heart of the young idealistic 1930s' playwright. This production has a pleasing clarity working on many levels with at least two young children in the audience enjoying the farce element of the show as much as the adults. A green light from TLT and her bagnole, but not quite as Rattigan meant it in his play!