FRANKIE AND JOHNNIE IN THE CLAIR DE LUNE. To 13 August.

London

FRANKIE AND JOHNNIE IN THE CLAIR DE LUNE
by Terrence McNally

Sound Theatre Wardour Street W1 To 13 August 2005
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Mat Thu & Sat 4pm
Runs 1hr 50min One interval

TICKETS: 0870 890 0503
www.seetickets.com (£1.50 booking fee)
Review: Timothy Ramsden 30 July

Night of doubt and passion well worth sharing.This is a second-rate play, and a very good one. It's a play that hits home to a corner of human experience: a night of passion and questioning (though there's none of the opening bedsprings-beware bonking of recent non-metropolitan productions). Terrence McNally follows truth rather than truism about the sexes. Suzan Sylvester's Frankie is very cautious, John Sharian's Johnnie all for making it a world-without-end bargain.

Clair de Lune is never mentioned, either as the moonlight making its way into Frankie's mean New York apartment or the Debussy piece night-time radio presenter Marlin plays for this waitress and cook who've finally met outside work. This double reference is part of the evasiveness that gives the situation its vital fragility. Marlin doesn't believe the people who've asked merely for the most beautiful music in the world are really Frankie and Johnnie. He's right, sort-of. Francis and John mould their names as they seek an identity in a world of failed hopes, while refusing to fall into hopelessness.

McNally's achievement is making socially insignificant people matter as humans, however external' his dialogue remains. This is a Godot for non-existentialists. People wait and hope, but they are not anonymous. They survive within a society. And something may come along.

James Philips' production makes the point of transience at the end; as an intrigued Marlin replays Clair de Lune, Frankie and Johnnie sit in the dawn. The piano chords are set against brushes scraping across teeth (she's found him an unused spare).

The publicity declares this the first major UK production for 15 years, presumably making productions I've seen in Bolton and the now sadly closed Eye Theatre minor. Yet, while the intimate Sound, its shallow V-stage bringing audience and actors close together, is a fine venue, this doesn't erase memories of those productions.

Both actors play the intimacy well, like people negotiating or arguing in a crowd. Sylvester has Frankie's uncertainty and dignity if not the full sense of life bearing down on her. Sharian, strongly built and well-intentioned, hits Johnnie dead-centre, a romantic hard knocks can't empty of hope. Well worth seeing.

Johnnie: John Sharion
Frankie: Suzan Sylvester

Director: James Phillips
Designer: David Farley
Lighting: Guy Hoare
Sound: Neil Alexander

2005-07-31 16:12:05