FACE VALUE. To 12 September.
Scarborough.
FACE VALUE
by Dawn King.
Stephen Joseph Theatre Restaurant. In rep to 12 September 2007.
14, 15, 21, 22, 28, 29 Aug, 5, 12 Sept 1.10pm.
Runs 50min No interval.
TICKETS: 01723 370541.
www.sjt.uk.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 10 August.
A script that knows about theatre, but a situation that’s rather hackneyed.
Ophelia has to face facts. A female actor’s face can no longer be her quite-so-big fortune as she matures. When the theatrical Dames have cornered the market in Queens, as she says, there’s limited scope for the rest of their generation. What threatens is the London Fringe, with its optimistically-named profit-share productions or, tremble, the regions.
It’s a nice joke, when Alan Ayckbourn’s Stephen Joseph Theatre can draw such strong performers as Eileen Battye and Philip York to act in its restaurant at lunchtimes (alongside being in the excellent revival of Relatively Speaking). And her opening scene shows writer Dawn King certainly knows the dynamics of theatre.
It consists of monologues intercutting Ophelia’s downbeat assessment of her prospects after a critical drubbing, and obsessive fan Martin’s certainty she’s a star and the only thing making her last play worth visiting. Especially at every performance, to the point his failing credit-card leads the box-office to hand him a last-night comp. Well, there would be plenty of empty seats to sell.
Martin’s funds have been taken by his departing wife, and when he turns up at Ophelia’s home, he’s as all-round unwanted as she is herself by her grown-up daughter. Their miseries intermix fairly predictably, while a final scene doesn’t make clear, at least in Adam Barnard’s production, whether Ophelia’s accommodation to a more realisable career is a result of the central meeting, let alone to whom she’s speaking in her dressing-room. Is it to us, in character, or to some imaginary visitors?
Battye and York play it finely of course, she with a soothing sympathy with Martin once over her initial alarm, especially when talk turns to her past performances, and a more glacial tone when she recovers her confidence in the final scene. York has a crumpled, shoulder-sagging defeat that neatly contrasts the confidence of his namesake Philip in the main-house, or his one-man Robert Maxwell show Lies Have Been Told. Not the most startling piece in the lunchtime repertory, but there are worse things to do, and this year is seeing a lot of wet lunchtimes in Scarborough.
Ophelia: Eileen Battye.
Martin: Philip York.
Director: Adam Barnard.
Designer: Michael Roberts.
2007-08-16 16:07:00