BOY GETS GIRL by Rebecca Gilman. Royal Court to 15 December.

London

BOY GETS GIRL
by Rebecca Gilman

Royal Court, Jerwood Theatre Downstairs To 15 December 2001
Runs 2hr 20min One interval

TICKETS 020 7565 5000
Review Timothy Ramsden 24 November

Taut and tense, this new play examines the urban menace of stalking through fully-realised characters.It begins with a blind date and ends in something like blind panic for New York magazine writer Theresa Bedell. American playwright Rebecca Gilman shows a balanced person's world tilting so every word and professional relationship is swept into the turbulence as a stalker closes down Theresa's ability to live a normal life. The clear logic of its progress through her personality is unerringly delineated in Katrin Cartlidge's magnificent portrayal of a life bending near to breaking point under the mounting stress.

Tony seems so nice at first, considerate if always a bit pushy. As his flowers and visits turn to 'phone and mail threats Demetri Goritsas' smart young man disappears from view. Our brief later sightings of him are wordless and directorial, circling her office during a scene change, or as a shadowy figure amid the wreck he's made of her apartment.

Theresa's boss, Howard, offers practical help, but has limited ability to give a younger woman emotional empathy. Staff writer Mercer, the newcomer who begins as her junior and becomes the colleague her increasingly affected copy gets referred to, is helpful as can be, but Theresa lashes out at his tinge of self-interest in turning her ordeal into a story.

Gilman develops a surprising understanding between Theresa and Karl Johnson's wrinkled porn-film director, a self-styled celebrator of mammoth mammaries who ends in hospital with his colon out. Behind the grossness he's as soft-hearted – 'forgiving' is his word - as Tony is relentless. It's what she needs; as, conversely, she finds more comfort in the formalised procedures of Lolly Susi's detective than the shopaholic smiles and sympathy of Lucy Punch's slender-brained, and as it turns out guilt-ridden, secretary.

Ian Rickson's fine production is acted throughout with quiet integrity. The end's downbeat but not depressing, less because Theresa seeks a new life in Denver – it has, after all, been forced on her - but because Gilman has balanced menace with decency, showing human strength straight as well as in its distorted obsessiveness.

Tony: Demetri Goritsas
Theresa Bedell: Katrin Cartlidge
Howard Siegel: Nicholas Day
Mercer Stevens: Jason Watkins
Harriet: Lucy Punch
Les Kennkat: Karl Johnson
Madeleine Beck: Lolly Susi

Director: Ian Rickson
Designer: Vicki Mortimer
Lighting: Paule Constable
Sound: Paul Arditti
Composer: Stephen Warbeck

2001-11-25 12:20:36