BEST FRIENDS. To 25 June.
London
BEST FRIENDS
by Anat Gov
New End Theatre 27 New End NW3 To 25 June 2005
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Sun 5.30pm Mat Sat & Sun 2.30pm
Runs: 1hr 30min No interval
TICKETS: 0870 033 2733
Review: Timothy Ramsden 22 May
Light touch comedy about life passing as friendships undergo strains.This amiable Israeli comedy about 3 women at 2 stages of their lives uses a pair of actors per character. They carry the action through a long-promised, underwhelming revelation, creating a sense of life passing and of a tight-knit teenage group driven apart by fault-lines in their friendship.
Which begins when intellectual Lali walks into the school toilets to hear Sofie and Tirtza slagging her off between puffs on a shared cigarette. Silencing them with a belated invitation to her party, she begins a triangular relationship in which she would be the electron circling their nucleus, were it not for a rupture separating the others. The reason for this is the other disclosure teased out as the story keeps alternating between the teenage trio and their maturer selves some 20 years on.
Susannah Pack's snappy production makes the most of the changes, especially in the short early scenes where the device is introduced, and where through 3 slatted blinds in the apertures of Kate Unwin's purposeful set the 2 ages seem to become conscious of each other for a moment, in a shared mix of precognition and memory. It suggests a depth the play elsewhere avoids in favour of a more predictable account of female friendship and its tensions.
Yet if Gov's characters are simply outlined they are not simplistic. Through conversations about virginity (loss of), marriage and child-rearing, intellectual Lali is seen to miss out on a fulfilling relationship, materialistic Sofie has her moment of generosity while Tirtza, apparently always latching on to her more experienced friends, turns her acquired understanding of life into artistic success.
Wisepart Productions field a cast well able to make all this clear in performance. The comedy is pointed and it's only in several more serious moments there's a tendency to underplay some lines. The older trio aren't really cast old enough, losing some sense of the women's worldly experience and of life's opportunities being missed: Sofie's hedonism has turned sour, Tirtza become a serious celebrity while Lali is reaching her last chance of motherhood. Otherwise, Pack's energy-filled production does well by Gov's play.
Younger Sofi: Danielle Urbas
Younger: Tirtza: Dulcie Lewis
Younger Lali: Anna-Marie Wayne
Olderr Sofi: Adi Lerer
Older Tirtza: Claire Lubert
Older Lali: Osnat Scmool
Director: Susannah Pack
Designer: Kate Unwin
Lighting: Richard Williamson
Sound: Jon Fiber
2005-05-26 00:32:44