ARSENIC AND OLD LACE. In rep to 19 October.
Pitlochry
ARSENIC AND OLD LACE
by Joseph Kesselring
Pitlochry Festival Theatre In rep to 19 October 2002
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat Wed & Sat 2pm
Runs 2hr 40min Two intervals
TICKETS 01796 484626
boxoffice@pitlochry.org.uk
Review Timothy Ramsden 19 August
High production values and beautifully-judged central performances enhance this latest revival of Kesselring's perennialJoseph Kesselring's one-off dramatic success (he wrote more but we aren't encouraged to see it) was a lucky chance. Someone took a fancy to the idea and doctored his original script into a classic U.S. comedy. And its qualities can rarely have been better on show than in this loving revival in the Pitlochry Festival season.
A strong central idea - that two elderly mommahood and apple-pie maiden aunts keep putting lonely lodgers out of misery with their uniquely-tinctured elderberry wine - is worked out in a logically flawless and expertly crafted plot, placing a pair of clean-living young lovers within an increasingly intense American gothic situation.
Classic American comedy from the first half of the 20th century seems hard to bring off in Britain, and Kitty Lucas and Guy Fearon's young lovers fall prey to the tendency to lay on transatlantic energy and enthusiasm too forcefully: American acting does this material with the appearance of laid-back ease.
It's most noticeable with Fearon - and most understandable, for his homecoming theatre critic is reason outraged and it's easy to see how the painful shocks he receives lead to sequences closer to Feydeau than American character comedy. Still, to complain of this is to work to the very high standards Baron's production set from the start.
Dougal Lee's escapee, the criminally insane black sheep Jonathan, is lumbered with a Boris Karloff/Frankenstein head-prosthetic which over-eggs the point - the Karloff references are a running gag and a bit more implication rather than slapped-down statement would give them room to breathe.
Yet Lee's performance itself is a model of comedy achieved through concentration and restraint. His rich, macabre voice and the still command at the centre of his arm and eye moves make his delinquent brother a superb contrast in more than height, towering over Jimmy Chisholm's mad cosmetic surgeon.
Chisholm, as always, bends his comic style to the character and makes surprisingly much out of this stereotype; his contortions to change his appearance as he stands behinds the policeman reading out his Wanted description caps a fine protrayal: you have to be glad he sneaks out unobserved.
Yet the production's glories lie in three places. With the two finely contrasted old ladies. Alice Fraser's Abby is a diminutive bundle of benevolence, all smiles and cheeriness, while Edith MacArthur's Martha is the strategist, candidly assured they're both doing the best for all in the best of all worlds, and with a surprisingly light and springy youthfulness in her manner.
Then there's the set: Trevor Coe supplies a splendid, vast mausoleum of a living room. A great space suitable cluttered with old furniture, it's in a house apparently built by an architect intent on suppplying as many walls and angles as possible, brooded over by the extension of its great staircase. With its four layers of dark-patterned wallpapers and paint it's a great home for Baron's production.
Abby Brewster: Alice Fraser
The Rev. Dr Harper/Mr Gibbs/Mr Witherspoon: Moray Treadwell
Teddy Brewster: Martyn James
Officer Brophy: John Buick
Officer Klein: Richard Keynes
Martha Brewster: Edith MacArthur
Elaine Harper: Kitty Lucas
Mortimer Brewster: Guy Fearon
Jonathan Brewster: Dougal Lee
Dr Einstein: Jimmy Chisholm
Officer O'Hara: Matt Blair
Lieutenant Rooney: Gavin Kean
Director: Richard Baron
Designer: Trevor Coe
Lighting: Mark Pritchard
Sound: Jon Beales
Costume: Ken Harrison
Accent coach: Lynn Bains
2002-08-20 22:18:45