AFFAIRS IN A TENT. To 4 May 2007.

Scarborough

AFFAIRS IN A TENT
(Intimate Exchanges)
by Alan Ayckbourn

Stephen Joseph Theatre To September 2006 then returning in 2007
7.30pm 2, 15, 21 Sept Mat 9 Sept 2.30pm
BSL Signed 15 Sept
Runs 2hr 15min One interval

TICKETS: 01723 370541
www.sjt.uk.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 5 August

Intimate Exchanges play Off-Broadway at 59e59 Theatres 31 May-1 July 2007 www.59e59.org

Gales of laughter precede a quiet conclusion as high-jinks reveal desperation.
While Alan Ayckbourn’s 8 Intimate Exchanges can be enjoyed as separate plays, their material overlaps. The first scene of this play is identical with that of A Garden Fete. As these plays’ 2 outer scenes are quite short, it’s a small matter. Two more share this opening, and the second scene of each is shared with one other play – so someone seeing all 8 will see each opening scene 4 times, each first-half twice.

Hence, the plays’ titles come from events in the 3rd scene (though, adding to the complexity, each of these is followed by 2 variant finales, making for an ‘A’ and ‘B’ version of each title: 16 possible evenings in all. Luckily, it’s all crystal-clear in the theatre).

Tent is the funniest of the 3 I’ve so far seen. Like many 4-scene Ayckbourn comedies it rises to a farcical climax in its 3rd scene, as Celia strikes out from her unhappy marriage to headteacher Toby Teasdale, her two-person catering company supplying sports’-day guests’ teas. As this new venture falls apart, her trust in self-assured business-partner Lionel Hepplewick (the school groundsman) evaporating, Celia breaks down, reverting – like Lucy in ‘Mother Figure’ (the first playlet in 1974’s Confusions) - to childhood security, talking to (in this case, imaginary) furry animals.

This Exchange also recalls the breakdown central to Just Between Ourselves, though the active agent within an unsatisfactory marriage is here the husband rather than the mother-in-law. The play picks up other seventies themes in Toby Teasdale’s long jeremiad against modern life, while Toby also comments (however partially) on the playwright’s core theme of communication difficulties: “If people stopped talking to each other, there wouldn’t be any misunderstanding.”

Bill Champion’s given more chance to build Toby’s character than in some of the plays, while Celia’s bright manner more clearly than ever covers the brittle stability that made her trust over-confident Lionel, someone to whom self-awareness is blessedly denied. Claudia Elmhirst makes her sympathetic, in contrast to the whale of a time she has in her comic turn as Irene Pridworthy, a school governor stalking and grumbling around the place.

Celia Teasdale/Sylvie Bell/Irene Pridworthy: Claudia Elmhirst
Lionel Hepplewick/Toby Teasdale/Miles Coombes: Bill Champion

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

2006-08-08 00:33:24