MAP OF THE HEART. To 7 May.

Salisbury

MAP OF THE HEART
by William Nicholson

Salisbury Playhouse To 7 May 2005
Mon-Wed 7.30pm Thur-Sat 8pm Mat 21, 23, 28 April, 5, 8 May 2.30 p.m.
Audio-described 5 May 2.30pm & 8pm
BSL Signed 4 May
Runs 2hr 10min One Interval

TICKETS: 01722 320333
www.salisburyplayhouse.com
Review Mark Courtice: 18 April 2005

Middle aged angst seems irrelevant, set against a real tragedy.Cardiac surgeon Albie Steadman is going to Sudan as a volunteer in the refugee camps. This is less charity than a desire to escape a marriage that bores him. There is also a glamorous doctor who seems to provide unqualified love as opposed to wife Ruth's more measured feelings.

Albie is taken hostage and in the interim all sorts of opinions and options change.

In William Nicholson's 1990 play politics are the catalyst but quite unimportant; instead we are to worry about family affairs.

Fiona Laird's production is as monochrome as Angela Simpson's set. There is little energy (although the company work very hard in the scene changes); emotion comes through a barrier of stiff upper lips. It's Nicholson's fault that the drama of the hostage-taking is taken as read, but even the confrontation of wife and mistress on TV is a strangely uninvolving moment.

Mark McGann gets the greyness of Albie and his life; there is a moment, as he is in desperate fear of death, when the acting comes alive, but this also serves to point up the dullness all around.

Judith Scott' s Ruth and Tim Frances as brother Bernard, who is recovering from a nervous breakdown and for whom she provides the understanding that Albie misses, are careful and detailed performances. They make a shared history with a background of music hall songs believable.

Their house sometimes seems to be on a desert island with a large tree outside the window upstage looking like one of those cartoon palm trees. This helps the way that Albie sees the house as somewhere to escape from (ironic in view of where he ends up), while Ruth enjoys the view from the vantage point it represents. Sound by Sarah Collins mixes Radio 4 with static, and forms an effective contrast to the live played music of Bernard's silly songs.

Nicholson's exploration of middle class, middle aged angst, in using a live political crisis as background and catalyst belittles both angst and real-life tragedy in an exercise in irrelevance.

Ruth Steadman: Judith Scott
Albie Steadman: Mark McGann
Sally Steadman: Olivia Poulet
Bernard Fisher: Tim Frances
Angus Ross: Stephen Finegold
Mary Hanlon: Anna Hewson
Smithy: Mark Trotman
Andrew Rainer: Jonathan Kemp
June Armitage: Suzanne Robertson

Director: Fiona Laird
Designer: Angela Simpson
Lighting: Ian Scott
Sound: Sarah Collins

2005-04-24 00:59:20