IN CAMERA. To 18 July.

London

IN CAMERA
by Jean-Paul Sartre translated by Stuart Gilbert

Rosemary Branch Theatre To 18 July 2004
Tue-Sat 8pm Sun 6pm
Runs 1hr 35min No interval

TICKETS: 020 7704 6665
Review: Timothy Ramsden 4 July

Variable performances in a sympathetic production.This play's climactic discovery Hell is other people hits home in a theatre audience when other people seem to regard it as an occasion for serial giggling. Theatre's theoretical binding-together of humanity in a common experience fragments when someone's having a different experience to their neighbour's. But no way is this Sartre's three-in-a-living-room romp.

Though the references of its recently dead, very ill-assorted, trio to traditional torture-chamber iconography of the underworld seems dated, they've only become so thanks to such 20th century redefinitions as Sartre's (another is C S Lewis's contrasting, yet complementary, idea of Hell as the infinite continuation of our own negative characteristics).

Though there are technical limitations to Kizmetic Theatre Company's revival, they should be thanked for reviving the play 60 years on. A favourite with student groups and one that might be overweighted with star casting - it's a play of ideas that should have been seen more round the regions or in smaller London houses.

Tim Gingell has a clear sense of the play's gradual shift from the three strangers' surprise at their arrival and memories of earthly life to their new shadowy eternity, stuck together, exposing each others' sores, in an elegant Second Empire drawing-room somewhere on a lift-shaft among the many floors of Hell. Clanging, invisible lift-gates and Mark Montgomerie's diabolically polite Valet (who also ushers in the audience) set the scene, a huge bronze bust ornament looms throughout as a potential, though immoveable, weapon (shame there's no design credit).

Among the inmates, Melanie Dresti's Inez (world theatre's only lesbian post-mistress?) comes off best. Her off-duty manner's more society salon than shop-counter but her distaste for Adrian Johnson's macho Garcin, seen in shrinking body language and looks of disgust, contrasts her smiling advances towards social butterfly Estelle. Rejected, she resorts to hawk-like, intrusive observation of the clashing heteros' rare couplings, accompanied by waspish observations.

Garcin reflects the play's 1940s attitude, the pacifist-going-on-coward editor preoccupied with professional reputation in contrast to the women's personal concerns. Johnson's forceful, but several hesitancies with lines hampered character development. And Sarah Dorsett's Estelle never delves beyond surface artifice.

Garcin: Adrian Johnson
Inez: Melanie Dresti
Estelle: Sarah Dorsett
Valet: Mark Montgomerie

Director: Tim Gingell
Lighting: Jason Telford of Nuroptics
Associate Director: Mark Montgomerie

2004-07-07 10:22:33