ABSURDIA. To 8 September.
London .
ABSURDIA
A RESOUNDING TINKLE and GLADLY OTHERWISE by N F Simpson.
THE CRIMSON HOTEL by Michael Frayn.
Donmar Warehouse To 8 September 2007.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Thu & Sat 2.30pm.
Audio-described 25 August 2.30pm (+Touch Tour 1.30pm).
BSL Signed 30 August 7.30pm.
Captioned: 28 August.
Runs 1hr 30min No interval.
TICKETS: 0870 060 6624.
www.donmarwarehouse.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 4 August.
The world of the Absurd given a brief whirl.
A link suggests itself between the umbrella title of Douglas Hodge’s trio of English one-acters and Anthony Nielson’s recent Scottish The Wonderful World of Dissocia. Neighbouring states perhaps?
But Nielson’s ironic title (‘Dissocia’ both is and isn’t wonderful) shows surface reality underlying a mental state, while the ‘Absurd’, briefly popular in post-war, New Drama Europe of the fifties and sixties ranged from pin-pricks against social complacency to drama removing all earthly certainties.
Waiting for Godot is the prime example of the second; it leaves nothing of theatre and very little in life certain, and it’s hardly surprising its author Samuel Beckett came first, and had the longest chapter, in Martin Esslin’s genre-forming book Theatre of the Absurd.
Such an Absurd, closer to continental writers like Sartre and Camus, has N F Simpson as a gatekeeper at most. Seem here in its shorter version, A Resounding Tinkle (the oxymoronic title reflects Simpson’s other major play One Way Pendulum) makes a critique of lower middle-class philistine complacency that might have come from Keith Waterhouse’s Billy Liar.
Hodge’s production announces the social satire in the stereotypical sight and sound of Judith Scott and Peter Capaldi’s arguing Paradocks, while Lyndsey Marshal’s stunning sex-change Uncle Ted is entirely downtown girl show-off. The overplayed style contrasts the characters’ everyday thoughts with Simpson’s substitution technique (it’d make sense if Ted, for instance, was talking about having another biscuit instead of reading another book) but this side of Monty Python and its TV siblings it seems over-obvious. A lower-key approach might have infused the point more subtly.
Michael Frayn’s new piece The Crimson Hotel is a different generation from Simpson and seems a different genre, mixing the complications of farce with a ‘real-life’ affair, imagining a room and furniture till the two characters themselves disappear. Doubtless brilliant, its relentless high-speed farce-playing without any physical context makes for a laugh-limiting cerebral experience.
Best is Simpson’s brief Gladly Otherwise with its satire on officious officialdom, represented by John Hodgkinson’s suited investigator, wheeling suddenly and probing with his brolly as if he’s discovered tax evasion and benefit fraud in one go.
A Resounding Tinkle
Middie Paradock: Judith Scott.
Bro Paradock: Peter Capaldi.
Uncle Ted: Lyndsey Marshal.
Vicar’s Voice: John Hodgkinson.
Gladly Otherwise
Mrs Brandywine: Judith Scott.
Mr Brandywine: Peter Capaldi.
Man: John Hodgkinson.
The Crimson Hotel
Bibette’s Voice: Judith Scott.
Pilou: Peter Capaldi.
Lucienne: Lyndsey Marshall.
Dodine’s Voice: John Hodgkinson.
Director: Douglas Hodge.
Designer: Vicki Mortimer.
Lighting: Paule Constable.
Sound: Carolyn Downing.
Music: Stu Barker/Douglas Hodge.
Movement: Carolina Valdes.
Dialect coach: Jan Haydn Rowles.
Assistant director: Alex Sims.
2007-08-05 23:59:10