FRANKIE AND JOHNNY IN THE CLAIR DE LUNE. To 14 May.

Eye

FRANKIE AND JOHNNY IN THE CLAIR DE LUNE
by Terrence McNally

Eye Theatre To 14 May 2005
Tue-Sat 8pm Mat Sat 4pm
Runs 2hr One interval

TICKETS: 01379 870519
01449 676800 (credit card bookings)
Review: Timothy Ramsden 11 May

The sex is great; the relationship comes along nicely too.Like the universe, this starts with a big bang. In some plays, the question is will the actors survive the run. Here, it's the bedsprings. The rest of Terrence McNally's 1987 2-hander is a poem for 2 lonely people who are neither great and beautiful nor exactly dispossessed and deprived. McNally's skill lies in throwing a spotlight on the anonymous.

Their names match two lovers in a song but this just makes them more anonymous; the all-night classical music DJ Johnny rings with a request assumes they've assumed the names. Asked for the most beautiful piece of music Marlon plays Debussy's haunting Clair de Lune. But he never names it, so they listen in the moonlight, unaware of an apparent significance in their lives.

Frankie's downbeat. While Johnny says asking a record shop for the most beautiful music written will produced the right disc, she thinks she'd end up with The Sound of Music. She's given up even thinking of herself as an actress, and the future in the one-room apartment she doesn't like seems interminable.

He, despite a past prison sentence, is a great cook, and makes the most of life. Their hopes from the date may not be far apart, but their aspirations are. Amid the cramped, untidy flat Louise Jackson and Neil Sheffield catch this contrast as they take us through the night.

Steve Harris's production might have pointed up the humour at several points, and Jackson treads rather flatly over some of the lines between the high moments. But there's a fine contrast between Sheffield, sprawling happily on the bed, appetisingly chewing a sandwich, his voice and manner outgoingly optimistic and Jackson, wrapping herself tight in a dressing-robe, concern constantly registering on her face, cautious in the relationship. Neither one is definitely right, and the differences between them could divide or unite them. Which is perhaps the point McNally's making.

Eye Theatre's intimacy is nearly ideal for the action maybe the space has to rely too much on length. But it would be hard not to be touched by Frankie and Johnny in their little room.

Frankie: Louise Jackson
Johnny: Neil Sheffield
DJ Marlon: John Hickey

Director: Steve Harris
Lighting: David Hermon

2005-05-12 17:18:24