PLAY WITHOUT WORDS. To 14 September.
London.
PLAY WITHOUT WORDS: THE HOUSEWARMING
devised by Matthew Bourne. Music by Terry Davies.
Lyttelton Theatre To 14 September 2002.
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Sat 2.30pm.
Audio-described 12,13 September.
Runs 1hr 45min One interval.
TICKETS 020 7452 3000.
Review Timothy Ramsden 4 September.
New theatricality wound round a story of the mid-century gone by.
Easily the worst thing about the Adventurous Matthew Bourne's new theatre-piece is the unhelpfully elusive first part of its title. Even the Lyttelton – desirably and necessarily associated with plays in the usual sense of author-written scripts interpreted by a director and actors – has welcomed visitors (Robert Lepage only last summer) using a wider, often non-verbal, theatrical palette. There's no need to make a point.
It's a title, too, that suggests incompleteness. Yet the performance doesn't feel incomplete. There are times when the whirl of movement could stop and some action or character be explained, but you wouldn't want this to happen. To a large extent the performance is the point. The sheer skill and physical elegance, sustained by Terry Davies' jazz-inflected score, is the evening's main attraction.
Yet there is a 'play'. Lez Brotherston's set, with its huge central staircase revolve, and peripheral emblems of London, including the top stone steps of street stairs descending to the infernal sub-urban regions of clubland, plus the character-related costumes are both from theatre rather than dance language.
This is swinging mid-sixties London. Though not everyone has grabbed the pendulum. There's a quaint 1950s feel to Anthony, new to his elegant west London house, thinking he's in control when he hires a servant Prentice, and to his fiancee Glenda (in severe costume and manner the most stereotypical part). But in this new world, Prentice represents so much that's previously been repressed by society and hidden in its expression by individuals coming into the open. Called to aid the corruption is Prentice's aide Sheila.
Behind this Housewarming is Robin Maugham's novel The Servant and, more closely, Joseph Losey's Harold Pinter scripted film version, with James Fox's member of the gentry corrupted by Dirk Bogarde's sly, ungentlemanly gentleman's gentleman.
Perhaps it's a shame Bourne didn't climax the Lyttelton's summer season of theatre vocabulary-widening new productions with an entirely new scenario. But if the story's already been widely told, his production adds a theatrical sizzle as the devious power games ricochet across the stage, finding varied expressions in the triplicated characters. A strong example of the possibilities and limitations in theatre without words.
Anthony: Will Kemp, Ewan Wardrop, Richard Winsor.
Glenda: Saranne Curtin, Michela Meazza, Emily Piercy.
Prentice: Scott Ambler, Steve Kirkham, Eddie Nixon.
Sheila: Belinda Lee Chapman, Valentina Vormenti.
Speight: Eddie Nixon, Alan Vincent, Ewan Wardrop.
Director: Matthew Bourne.
Designer: Lez Brotherston.
Lighting: Paule Constable.
Sound: Christopher Shutt.
Music Director: Michael Haslam.
Movement: Matthew Bourne, The Company.
2002-09-13 15:11:17