ON AN AVERAGE DAY. To 27 October.
London
ON AN AVERAGE DAY
by John Kolvenbach
Comedy Theatre To 27 October 2002
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Mat Wed & Sat 3pm Sun 4pm
Runs 1hr 50min One interval
TICKETS 020 7369 1731
www.theambassadors.com
Review Timothy Ramsden 8 August
Well-wrought play that doesn't quite earn its starry billing.Very likely, if this play had turned up in a small off-West End, or even slightly larger regional, theatre, this review would have been hailing a fine new American playwright's import to Britain. Like a loud bang and there are a couple of those its dramatic force would resonate more easily in a smaller space.
Somehow, though, given a cavernous London venue and West End pomp the stars, the prices the big noise echoes away to a tinier pop. It's not bad; it just seems too reminiscent of so many other American stage and celluloid imports. The production programme's reference to Sam Shepard does Kolvenbach's play no favours. It suggests Kolvenbach's work is comparable with the older dramatist's. The word 'derivative' rather comes to mind.
Two brothers: one apparently level-headed, the other crazy, his apparently logical account of events culminating in the realisation that he's describing the violent criminal act that's landed him in court. In his psychological torment he hangs on to childhood trust in his father. It's this that gets blown away during his brother's visit. Somehow, it all seems too carefully plotted.
After an act focused on Harrelson's Bob and his go-nowhere life in the dilapidated home, with its monstrous stink from a fridge apparently full only of beers, the interval comes with a direction-turning bang, preparing for the second half's scrub-down of respectable Jack's predicament. Tension between the two erupts to moments of violence, and the purpose of Jack's visit becomes clear, if never quite convincing.
Harrelson seems effortless in portraying Bob's psychoses; they're so well within his acting range you long for something surprising to test him out, some real surprise about the character. Instead, Bob stays as predictably ripped-up as his semi-demolished shirt. Nor does the revelation about neatly-garbed Jack, again played well within range by MacLachlan, lead far. Never mind Shepard; forty years after Virginia Woolf? the revelations here seem tame.
Kolvenbach uses detail well, and has a sense of structure. But he's on a tough testing ground; at present his actors seem to do more for the play than his script does for them.
Robert: Woody Harrelson
Jack: Kyle MacLachlan
Director: John Crowley
Designer: Scott Pask
Lighting: Mark Hendserson
Sound: Fergus O'Hare for Aura
Dialect coach: Jill McCullough
Fight director: Wolf Christian
2002-08-09 11:11:44