A SMALL FAMILY BUSINESS: till 12 July
Leeds
A SMALL FAMILY BUSINESS
by Alan Ayckbourn
West Yorkshire Playhouse (Quarry Theatre) To 12 July 2003
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat 3,5,10,12 July 2pm
Audio-described 2,5 July
Runs 2hr 45min One interval
TICKETS:0113 213 7700
www.wyp.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 28 June
Middle-class paranoia a fluent production where sinister and comic run smoothly
This is one of Ayckbourn's paranoia plays; society as the English middle-class knows it falling apart, as barbarism seeps into British life.
It's also one of three Ayckbourn's not written to be performed in the round, beginning life in the National's huge Olivier Theatre, during Ayckbourn's time running an acting company there. Hence its large (13) cast, and multiple staging.
The two-tier set shows Jack McCracken's home (spacious for one whose honesty apparently keeps him from wealth). And in Ayckbourn fashion, it intermittently doubles as the homes of other family members, as their scams come to light and change Jack's cosy idealism.
Dependable home furnishing company Ayres and Graces is ripped off from within as trad. notions of decency get torn apart. Old man Ayres, barely aware of what's happening around him, mired in memory of dead wife Gracie, is the one who along with moral Jack makes speeches. Meanwhile, others look out for themselves. The strong like Candida Gubbins' sexually active Anita, ready to psychologically bully mentally ground-down Harriet lead the weak.
The play begins and ends with a surprise party, but it's the surprises shot out between that fuel the comedy. Gerard Murphy's expostulating shock at family corruption works well enough, though he doesn't have the iron-in-soul quality which made Michael Gambon's Jack in the premiere sour convincingly from upright to ramrod, from honest Englishman to mafia-style godfather.
When a private 'tec tries his hand in the till, retribution's swift. Darkness goes with comedy, as his murder evokes the night's loudest laughs. If Way Upstream warned of new intolerance wiping out defeatist decency, this play marked-out cold-blooded 'greed is good' entrepreneurialism.
All depends on characters revealing unknown sides but not truly developing, and with the added kick that the last-scene involvement with drugs hits young Sammy experienced Ayckbourn youngster Charlie Hayes giving a display of teenage 'hands off' surliness descending to addiction.
A strong cast and fluent direction make for an evening where all runs smoothly sinister and comic alike - meaning we never lose track of this picture showing society going off the moral rails.
Poppy McCracken: Amanda Boxer
Ken Ayres: Peter Laird
Yvonne Doggett: Alwyne Taylor
Anita McCracken: Candida Gubbins
Cliff McCracken: Ian Targett
Tina Ruston: Eleanor Tremain
Jack McCracken: Gerard Murphy
Roy Ruston: Justin Brett
Desmond Ayres: Alexander Delamere
Samantha McCracken: Charlie Hayes
Harriet Ayres: Regina Freedman
Benedict: Hough: Nicholas Murchie
5 Rivettis: Cameron Blakely
Director: Ian Brown
Designer: Jonathan Fensom
Lighting: Tim Mitchell
Sound: Mic Pool
Fight director: Renny Krupinski
Voice: Susan Stern
Movement: Lucy Cullingworth
Sponsor: GNER
2003-07-01 21:39:37