A ONE MAN PROTEST. To 2 May 2007

Scarborough/Bwness-on-Windermere/Newcastle-under-Lyme

A ONE MAN PROTEST
(Intimate Exchanges)

by Alan Ayckbourn

The Old Laundry Theatre Bowness-on-Windermere
30 September-2; 13 October 8pm
then New Vic Theatre Newcastle-under-Lyme24-26 October; 3 November 2006 7.30pm
returning to Stephen Joseph Theatre Scarborough in 2007
Runs 2hr 30min One interval

TICKETS: 015394 88444 ext 223 (Bowness-on-Windermere)
01782 717962
www.newvictheatre.org.uk (Newcastle-under-Lyme
01723 370541
www.sjt.uk.com (Scarborough)
Review: Timothy Ramsden 23 September at Stephen Joseph Theatre

Intimate Exchanges plays Off-Broadway at 59E59 Theaters 31 May-1 July 2007 www.59e59.org

Hilarity and tragedy wonderfully mixed.
As the revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s early-80s octet of plays proceeds it’s time to note the achievement of co-director Tim Luscombe, who stepped in when Ayckbourn had a stroke in spring 2006. No easy job; Ayckbourn’s as fine a director as he is a playwright. Yet there’s been, remarkably, no question of any lapse in quality. It doubtless helped having experienced Ayckbourn actor Bill Champion and Claudia Elmhirst, a true all-rounder with wide experience at Richmond’s Orange Tree Theatre.

I’ve said in Exchanges reviews Elmhirst needs a more external approach, with more obvious technique, to act-up to the age of Celia Teasdale, dissatisfied wife to grumpy private-school headteacher Toby. This isn’t a criticism, just a sign compromises are needed when 2 each actors play a range of roles.

An older actor might have to do the same with going-on-20 cleaner for the Teasdales, Sylvie Bell. Elmhirst’s Sylvie is a brilliant, emotionally-gripping creation, searching out every corner of her character possibilities; native intelligence, shrewdness, cunning, independence and teasing, defensive provocation, leading to triumph or tragedy in different versions. In Protest, the sudden change in her walk when respectable, confused Miles is around, the assured rising cadences, are beautifully done, like so much else.

Her Rowena is nearly as fine, an early-eighties suburban free-spirit with red-curled hair flowing above loose red skirt, necklace and bangles. In the sex scene here, which is also a love scene with husband Miles, while appearing to be neither, she and Champion are outstanding. It’s a dramatic high-spot amid the comic business, leading to a downbeat finale where Miles is as confused rehearsing a speech to his own children as he was at the start, all arm gestures and rejected phrases, preparing his defence of Toby before the school governors.

Past the revivals’ half-way point, there’s an evident Wagnerian quality to Intimate Exchanges. As in Der Ring des Nibelungen’s gods-and-heroes tale with its thwarted projects and clashing wills, human destinies here run varying ways according to chance and circumstance as well as human character. The culmination of the project next February already makes 2007 a red-letter year for theatre.

Celia/Sylvie/Rowena: Claudia Elmhirst
Miles/Toby/Lionel: Bill Champion

Directors: Tim Luscombe, Alan Ayckbourn
Designer: Michael Holt
Lighting: Ben Vickers

2006-09-24 14:32:20