FACTORS UNFORESEEN To 30 May.

Richmond.

FACTORS UNFORESEEN
by Michel Vinaver translated by Catherine Crimp.

Orange Tree Theatre To 30 May 2009.
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Sat 4pm & 28 May 2.30pm (+ Post-show discussion).
no performance 25 May.
Runs 1ht 45min No interval.

TICKETS: 020 8940 3633.
www.orangetreetheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 11 May.

A lot of stage business in a play that stages business.
This play, and its Orange Tree production, are reminders of artistic director Sam Walter’s admiration for the late James Saunders. Saunders’ playfulness is mirrored in Michel Vinaver’s fast-moving script (originally from 1979) about the vagaries of capitalism, employment rivalries in business and the relation of commerce to publicity.

It’s hardly surprising cosmetics are the subject of all the fuss and fury in this surface world. Nor that the specific product, its name argued over, should be a tanning agent, developed just at the moment a Euro-royal goes on television in a series tracking her death from melanoma.

Assorted suits run and jump across the Orange Tree stage, responding to the latest business manoeuvres or swing in public opinion. Around this central rushing and leaping, three duos sit at the edges in comparative composure: the dying princess and her smart TV interviewer, two executives of the US parent-company – sitting together but facing away from each other, an image of corporate communication - and female factory-workers in pinkish uniforms chatting with complete disconnection about the product they spend their days helping to make.

With merely a few anonymous grey shapes for sitting at, Tim Meacock’s set leaves such space as there is to the large cast. Vinaver’s play hardly invites detailed psychological acting; it’s pace and energy that matter, presenting the hurried responses of deliberately insubstantial figures.

So long as their knee-joints hold out for the run, David Leonard’s marketing director Girard and David Antrobus’ manager Violot provide two neatly-gradated pictures of self-satisfaction and surface confidence. Though a few performances are less subtly inflected (not so important in this kind of fast-moving display), all contribute to a sales-pitch demonstration where the swiftness of montage re-creates the swirl of an unpredictable life, seeming persuasive while leaving uncertainty in its wake.

Here, the uncertainty’s rightly about the play’s world of advertising and product-promotion. It’s a well-worn field of dramatic exploration, and by the later stages there are questions whether it’s a field being excessively ploughed at this length. Mainly, though, the verve and clear-playing in Sam Walters’ production keep energy and interest levels up.

Narrator/Dejoux: Howard Saddler.
Aubertin/Roy: Paul Gilmore.
Girard: David Leonard.
Claisse: Christopher Staines.
Brouhot/Bouchardon: Paul Bigley.
Violot/Brunier: David Antrobus.
Piau: Richard Hollis.
Bouteiller: Ben Nathan.
Anthouard: Emma Gregory.
Busson/Muset: Paul O’Mahony.
Maujean/Bonnard: Tam Williams.
Roussy/Laforet: Jemma Churchill.
Anne-Marie/Market Research Consultant/A Manager, Kronenburg Breweries: Amber Agar.
Mireille Pellepain: Lisa Stevenson.
Ginette: Amy Neilson Smith.
Carole: Sarah Lam.
Don: Kieron Jecchinis.
Phil: Mike Sengelow.
Princess Benedicte de Bourbon-Beaugency: Rebecca Egan.
Michel Beuret: Christopher Naylor.

Director: Sam Walters.
Designer: Tim Meacock.
Lighting: John Harris.
Assistant director: Andy Brunskill.

2009-05-15 12:22:17