ABSURD PERSON SINGULAR. To 22 March.
London
ABSURD PERSON SINGULAR
by Alan Ayckbourn.
Garrick Theatre.
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Wed & Sat 3pm.
Runs 2hr 40min Two intervals.
TICKETS: 0870 040 0083 (booking fee).
www.nimaxtheatres.com/absurd (booking fee).
Review: Timothy Ramsden 15 December.
Some success in seasonal revival.
Three plays looking at British society stand out amid seventies theatre. Howard Brenton’s The Churchill Play (1974) takes a future perspective, David Hare’s Plenty (1977) tracks the post-war past, while Alan Ayckbourn’s 1972 Absurd Person Singular has a present-tense stance.
Absurd moves through three successive Christmases. Each act’s set on Christmas Eve in a different kitchen, the householders providing increasingly reluctant hospitality. At its comic heart, amid complaining and competing, a character tries, wordlessly, to commit suicide.
Its picture of its time displays a sense of failure in traditional attitudes, contrasted against a thrusting, proto-Thatcherite developer, preoccupied with profit not property, and male self-interest manifesting itself in terms designed to appeal to new suburban feminism.
Though Ayckbourn’s range has extended since 1972, in some ways this sharp and ultimately bitter play, is his most perfect piece. Any halfway-decent production is worth seeing.
So Alan Strachan’s West End revival is worth seeing, though he seems to feel a need to underline this is a serious, as well as very funny, comedy with an unhelpful heavy-handedness. Lia Williams shows Eva’s thought-processes during her frustrated attempts to end it all, and subsequently, recovered, makes clear her fallen husband’s need for Sidney’s commercial patronage. But the seriousness mutes the comedy, a few moments excepted – such as a fine nervous jump from chair to floor.
John Gordon Sinclair is persuasive as her philandering husband; it’s not his fault his Scottish accent seems out of place (Ayckbourn’s a very English writer; for someone based in Scarborough, generally a very southern English writer). It seems unlikely this Scots interloper wouldn’t have his nationality mentioned in this little society.
David Bamber’s obvious casting for Sidney, if a little mature for the up-and-coming entrepreneur. A little too obvious perhaps; Sidney’s a trap enticing actors to caricature. However, as his wife, Jane Horrocks, obsessionally cleaning anything in sight, shows her character’s growing assurance in the final act. Good work from Jenny Seagrove, while David Horovitch is utterly reliable as the unworldly-seeming bank-manager.
Michael Pavelka’s half-height sets half-create the contrasting domestic environments. Overall, by no means absurd, but not singular either.
Jane: Jane Horrocks.
Sidney: David Bamber.
Ronald: David Horovitch.
Marion: Jenny Seagrove.
Eva: Lia Williams.
Geoffrey: John Gordon Sinclair.
Director: Alan Strachan.
Designer: Michael Pavelka.
Lighting: Jason Taylor.
Sound: Ian Horrocks-Taylor.
Costume: Brigid Guy.
Assistant director: Tom Littler.1
Wigs/Hair: Kasandra Nicols.
2007-12-17 01:56:45