DECEPTIONS To 15 August.

Tour.

DECEPTIONS
by Paul Wheeler.

Tour to 15 August 2009.
Runs 2hr One interval.
Review: Timothy Ramsden 6 July.

It could have been so much more lively on TV.
When a young man consults a smart female psychiatrist twenty years his senior, it’s not just layers of lies that are peeled away. For Adam it means momentary nudity, for Julia the ultimate release from her grey suit to mid-length dress as their relationship blooms amid deceptions and the double-bluff of truths deceptively used.

But whether Paul Wheeler intended his play to show something of the complexities of human relationships and the way past experiences drive people, or simply to rivet attention for a couple of hours, Deceptions is deceiving itself if it thinks it carries much conviction.

As so often in stage thrillers, the action moves slowly, creating a heavy sense of over-seriousness. On TV people have time to dash to the shops, find their car’s been bumped and generally deal with other parts of their lives in a few moments. Here, an apparently disconnected ‘phone call means watching Michelle Collins’ psychiatrist Julia standing alone. Such a moment announces itself with a lumbering self-importance its later significance doesn’t remove.

Everything’s carefully plotted. Too carefully; both individuals here have untidy elements in their lives but they behave all the time according to their writer’s plan, like pawns in a chess match. When the final layer of wrapping’s removed there’s quite a good denouement at the centre, but its impact’s limited because the characters have never sprung into life.

Things aren’t helped by Collins’ limited range of vocal tone, while her sentences tend to a similarity of patterning in delivery. Nor is she believable as a psychiatrist, her manner, with its arm-waving gestures, being too self-advertising (a session with Henry Goodman’s character at Duet for One should be prescribed). Then again, the script demands she behaves in unlikely ways, chasing after her patient, calling for him to return. She makes a better case for treatment; a scene where Adrian and Julia swap roles is by far the most convincing bit of therapy.

Rupert Hill brings suitable naivety and erratic energy to young Adrian, but the character, with its mix of shallow depiction and obsessive depth of motivation, ultimately has him beaten.

Julia Smythe: Michelle Collins.
Adrian Wainwright: Rupert Hill.

Director: Joe Harmston.
Designer: Simon Scullion.

2009-07-07 14:01:34