END OF STORY. To 14 December.
London
END OF STORY
by Veronique Olmi translated by Graham Cowley
Chelsea Theatre To 14 December 2002
Mon-Sat 8pm
Runs 1hr 30min No interval
TICKETS 020 7352 1967
Review Timothy Ramsden 26 November
A production which usefully imports a writer new to the British stage.It's the little things that cause the break-ups and breakdowns. Especially when they're treated as some big thing. Middle-aged Marco's marriage to children's author Lili is clearly rocky. It's when she discovers his new notebook, drooling verbally over the gorgeous teenager he passed in the street, that she orders him out. Or, as they say, does she?
There are capable realistic performances from the couple, but John Joe Turner's production imprisons Tricia Thorns' Lili in two modes: full-throated rage and thin-voiced desperation. Martyn Whitby's powerfully-built Marco has a withdrawn self-control which shows they're at the end of the line. When she scornfully pours out his suitcase contents, he walks out carrying the empty, open luggage. He has to go.
Though both performers serve the script well enough, there's a slight sense of flat English phrasing being at odds with Gallic passion, even in translation. And the production is limited by a deliberation, a refusal to be overtly theatrical. There's a memorable moment when their granddaughter stops the offstage rowing by opening the front door (also the auditorium door this is a near minimalist set) and ringing the bell. Her calm handling of the moment, and evident need to resort to this tactic has a richness elsewhere lost in the production's torrent of words.
Olmi holds a surprise for her last scene. The bleak separation has happened and Lili steels herself to visit her daughter Cecilie. Plain functionalism is replaced chez Cecilie by signs of artistic interests. But the daughter's chief talent is for keeping her parents apart, scorning her mother's surrender of fiction for a sociable life selling scents, putting her own end to a tale her mother never told.
Amber Batty's performance is coolly self-contained though she overplays the low-key delivery at times. Finally, there's the impression of a play whose outlines are clear but one where the heart remains to be unlocked by a less hesitant, more tonally varied production which can find more subtlety of character.
Still, thanks to the Chelsea and co-producers Two's Company for taking us this far with a dramatist previously unknown on the British professional stage.
Lili: Tricia Thorns
Marco: Martyn Whitby
Zoe: Amber Baverstock/Casi Toye/diane Trayling
Cecilie: Amber Batty
Director: John Joe Turner
Designers: Rosalind Cowley, Nicole Curtis
Lighting: Join Primrose
2002-11-27 01:02:39