CLOACA. To 11 December.

London

CLOACA
by Maria Goos

Old Vic To 11 December 2004
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Wed & Sat 2.30pm
Runs 2hr 25min One interval

TICKETS: 0870 060 6628
www.oldvictheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 29 September

Middle-age, middle-class male sewer rats reconvene.After Art, Cloaca; are women playwrights throughout Europe exploring the male population through the acquisition of modern paintings? In Maria Goos' play (a success at home in Holland) the paintings have been collected from Dutch municipal basements by Pieter; now they've grown in value the question arises of his right to keep them.

The problem's exacerbated by long-time friends turning up. Some still arrive with the old club-cry Cloaca despite edging through their forties (and still unaware of its implications). Pieter looks for help from the self-obsessed and arrogant (would you have guessed?) politician Jan. And Tom, a lawyer fresh out of a clinic. The final friend is a playwright and theatre director, initially repulsive but finally coming up trumps, albeit negative ones.

Among the disrupted relationships, the loneliness of the long-distance gay, the wild sexual itch, the only female voice is a stripper the lads buy in for Jan's 43rd birthday. As a father he's been raging about his daughter appearing naked on stage. As a husband it's the woman's Caesarean scar that cuts short his lascivious birthday treat, leading to a tearful confessional which Goos finely upstages and undermines.

This is a good little play, making serious points through humour. It's not helped by an early interval, leaving a more serious second act collapsing into too many short scenes.

But it's not, theatrically, a big play (it would be excellent at Hampstead or the Bush). What makes it work at the Old Vic is an outstanding cast. Stephen Tompkinson travels from splenetic individual to depressed bureaucrat, Hugh Bonneville has an explosive self-possession that takes the edge off the character's ruthlessness till the final minutes of thwarted ambition.

Adrian Lukis shows mania emerge from the shell of treatment while Neil Pearson's Maarten uncovers a core of concern once his show's on the road. Ingeborga Dapkunaite's brief appearance tests several of the men's characters without speaking an intelligible word. Kevin Spacey's direction sets a fair pace and places the characters well for each scene. If much of the stage is little used, that again is the nature of the play.

Pieter: Stephen Tompkinson
Jan: Hugh Bonneville
Tom: Adrian Lukis
Maarten: Neil Pearson
Woman: Ingeborga Dapkunaite

Director: Kevin Spacey
Designer: Robert Jones
Lighting: Mark Henderson
Sound: Fergus O' Hare
Assistant director: Jeremy Whelehan

2004-09-30 08:31:49