PARTING SHOTS. To 1 March.

Scarborough

PARTING SHOTS
by Peter Robert Scott

Stephen Joseph Theatre (McCarthy auditorium) To 1 March 2003
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Sat 2.45pm
Runs 2hr 20min One interval

TICKETS 01723 370541
www.sjt.uk.com
Review Timothy Ramsden 22 February

More war at the Stephen Joseph: after their Bosnian play, a tense drama that uncovers the complexities of a society facing liberation.Imagine the Russians had invaded Britain, around 1950. That Churchill, war hero against the Nazis, had decided to form a compromise government (I know - but suppose). That to ward off the worst of the Gulag syndrome he'd gone along with England being Communist-run and Scotland or Wales having a supposedly independent administration.

And that the Old Vic Theatre Company (nearest to a British National Theatre in those days) had filmed Henry V under the watchful eyes of Soviet commissars, who had respectfully required Sir Laurence Olivier to lead his cinematic troops into Agincourt wearing a hammer-and-sickle logo, refilming 'Once more unto the breach...' with a reference to Stalin, and knowing that in Russia the whole speech would be dubbed with an Anglophile Muscovite's rewrite about fighting, 'For Marx, for Lenin and the working-class'.

Then suppose, amid the confusion as the Stalinists were beaten from Britain under American firepower, the entire Old Vic crew had been held at gunpoint by anti-Communist guerillas, fired by bloody revenge on Bolshevik sympathisers and keen to route out every trace of collaborators.

You'd then have an idea of the situation faced by the film crew in Peter Robert Scott's new play. Except, you'd need to add that the lead revengers is on an emotional skid, out of control of his own Resistance command and fed information by a star-struck, mind-deprived 14 year old, sexually abused at home.

Scott lives in France; it's to be hoped the neioghbours don't take his characters too personally. German officer Otto, a conscienciously worried intellectual who loves France, is considerably more likeable than most of the French.

Film director Armand, hoping to escape to safety in Germany, is a smooth compromiser. By no means the most involving character, his fate is put central stage by Scott: we're made to feel a 'happy' outcome depends on his survival.

More interesting is Domero, France's popular comic film-star, who is given the play's final, enigmatic moment, smiling as he freely dons the Iron Cross the Germans were making him wear for the film. Presumably, as the sound of planes signals liberation, he's discovered a new Euro-unity with the like of Otto, whose father died across the Great War battlefield from his own.

This final moment's unclear, and explanations tend towards a sentiment the play's not quite earned. Yet Victor McGuire nearly pulls it off. For his Domero, always well-fed while others almost starve, egoistic as any Hollywood star, has just taken on the performance of his (and Armand's) life, as improvising advocate trying to prevent the director's execution by a summary, chaotic tribunal.

His bete-noire's the sound man Toussaint, a technician angered at the star's indulgence and willing to turn against him, denouncing Domero's support for Petain (like Churchill in the imagined analogy above, once national hero, now more ambiguously viewed), literally sitting in judgment on his colleagues. It says a lot for the integrity of Gary Sefton's quietly stated performance that you can understand how Toussaint feels.

A 9-strong cast's a luxury for a short run in a small theatre at a seaside theatre out-of-season. It says a lot for Alan Ayckbourn's Scarborough operation it's prepared to put this on, and with a strong cast, every one of whom makes their part register. Plus designs by Pip Leckenby where the crew's caravan is sturdier than the two-dimensional location foliage - its whispiness a sign both of celluloid sham and the country's uncertain future. Stephen Joseph would be proud of this venture.

Scott, while hardly the novice author the 'First Foot' seasons seem designed to bring on, justifies the effort wirth a play where every character counts, onstage or off (the interesting developments at points where characters return to the action is one of the play's quiet strengths).

That the second act's more than just another hostage drama is largely due to the excellent work ofHelen Coker's poor little poor girl - desperate for an identity - a searing, sputtering characterisation by Ryan Pope, who clearly understands the way Victor's anger fuels his confused hand on the trigger, and, in contrast, Gareth Farr's superbly-judged compatriot, who sees the wrong in Victor's ways but knows he has no-one else to trust.

Armand: Damien Goodwin
Beatrice: Daniele Lydon
Domero: Victor McGuire
Otto: Nigel Hastings
Geraud: Philip Ralph
Toussaint: Gary Sefton
Aurelie: Helen Coker
Victor: Ryan Pope
Julien: Gareth Farr

Director: Laurie Sansom
Designer: Pip Leckenby
Lighting: Ben Vickers

2003-02-23 11:04:27