ABSURD PERSON SINGULAR. In rep to 19 October.
Pitlochry
ABSURD PERSON SINGULAR
by Alan Ayckbourn
Pitlochry Festival Theatre In rep to 19 October 2002
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat Wed & Sat 2pm
Runs 2hr 50min Two intervals
TICKETS 01796 484626
boxoffice@pitlochry.org.uk
Review Timothy Ramsden 21 September
One of Ayckbourn's finest comedies in a finely-conceived production with imaginative sets and several strong performances.I doubt if Ayckbourn wrote anything finer than this early 1970s piece, set in three kitchens on successive Christmas Eves, in that happy early phase when suburban marriage's miseries were the centre of his dissecting comic knife.
It's a period I'd place up until the new decade floated in with Way Upstream, beginning a new, more apocalyptic, dystopic type of play - itself transformed into the warmth of a new period with Communicating Doors and the excellent work for young people in recent years.
Here's a production that suggests a geographic link between opportunistic businessman Sidney and smart architect on the way down Geoff, through tower blocks glimpsed through their windows.
It may be his silvery hair that suggests Moray Treadwell's Sidney is older than is usual for this cheap mind on the make. Treadwell maximises this characterisation, being less cruel than some in his strictures on his hausfrau wife Jane's compulsive cleaning and tidying. There's an apt touching tinge to their relationship that might reduce Sidney's domestic tyranny but emphasises the couple's blindness to their impact on those around them.
Martyn James gives bank-manager Ronald rather too obvious a distaste for Sidney and Jane's company (interesting the Pitlochry audience, ever-ready to applaud the theatre's admirable sets, should give a round to the deliberate poor-taste first scene). But in other respects, James' impractical manner captures a pre-Thatcherite grammar-school unworldliness that could easily be found in Britain's financial institutions. And he makes a fine comic picture, volted into shock and covered with the washing-basket's contents: a latter-day Falstaff.
But the tricky couple are Geoff and Eva, hosts to the central act. It's the celebrated one where suicidally-bent Eva wordlessly causes chaos all around from visitors who don't penetrate her intentions and set themselves to all manner of helpful housework. Eva here is too starkly depressive in make-up and manner: surely someone would have twigged, even among these people. Similarly, her recovery for the following year's Christmas at the Brewster-Wright's seems remarkable.
But Dougal Lee's Geoff, self-obsessed personally and over-confident professionally, charts a clear way through the character which normally seems most difficult to bring off. It's done by containment - the vanities breathe out through his manner, obviating the need to try and build them through external mannerisms which so easily work against realism with this kind of person. The Aga sums up their lifestyle ideall - nowadays there'd surely be a 4x4 with bull-bars in the drive.
Like all great comedies, Absurd Person Singular is both a precise portrait of a section of society in a specific age and a glimpse of human nature in its less glorious pretentions. Pitlochry very largely has its measure, though the play's final moments have their own bite, without the need for diabolic red lighting and superimposed music to over-emphasise the point: the rise and rise of Sidneyopolis and its vulgarity. Maybe there's something of eighties Ayckbourn lurking here already.
Sydney Hopcroft: Moray Treadwell
Jane Hopcroft: Helen Logan
Ronald Brewster-Wright: Martyn James
Marion Brewster-Wright: Anne Kidd
Geoffrey Jackson: Dougal Lee
Eva Jackson: Jo Freer
Director: Ian Grieve
Designer: Trevor Coe
Lighting: Mark Pritchard
Costume: Monika Nisbet
2002-09-22 22:05:15