PLAYING GOD. To 3 September.
Scarborough
PLAYING GOD
by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran
Stephen Joseph Theatre (The Round) In rep to 3 September 2005
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat 2.30pm
Ruins 2hr 5min One interval
TICKETS: 01723 370541
Review: Timothy Ramsden 30 August
Well-planned comedy exlores goodness and guilt.Cast illness prevented a review appearing first time we tried. Better (we hope) late than never, so here goes:
Along with the famous alleged clown keen on playing Hamlet it seems there's a TV comedy-writing duo waiting to go serious on stage. Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran have multiple small-screen series successes (Shine on, Harvey Moon, Birds of a Feather, Love Hurts etc. etc. And then some). But this is their first go at the big open space.
It succeeds, feeling neither like an overgrown sitcom nor a series of strung-together episodes. This is sex, death and rock 'n' roll founded on an underlying irony. Ed, an aged rock-musician who opens affairs by declaring to his wife and best friend plus his wife at a dinner-party, that he's got cancer. Yet Ed faces the potential death-sentence with as much calm as physical pain allows (the writers don't evade this as events proceed), being the only one not wracked by psycho-agonies.
His wife Claudia's an agoraphobic travel-writer whose prize-winning pieces are written without crossing her front-door, while friend Clive is a BBC religious producer and closet atheist. And they're carrying on an affair, their guilty consciences building a palace of paranoia as they believe Ed's benevolent actions are really schemes driving towards their ruin.
Meanwhile Clive's wife, Henri, is a power-executive whose company vehicle Clive smashes up and loses the one time he puts himself out for Ed, nearly ruining his own life in the process. Henri's full of religious conviction but it only makes her sour, suspicions about Clive's extra-marital activities driving her towards destructive revenge.
There are moments the script moves wild laughter in the throat of death, and the writers show how life can see the most serious situation undermined by minor tactlessness as Clive uses the language of mortality about his own problems. More often, the play's amusingly ironic: Clive's sexual desire is never matched by phallic performance, Claudia's torn between the 2 men while being unable to face the front-door (she turns away with agonised look whenever it opens). Henri's the least developed character but clearly her sense of right brings her close to doing wrong by Ed.
Becky Hindley plays the moment when she pulls back from this with persuasive consideration, while Clare Swinburne's Claudia is contrastingly light in movement, as she is undecided in her mind. David Sibley doesn't quite fill the chasm between Henri's contempt and Claudia's desire (even if that's partly him being the only other man she ever meets) but shows the torment of a guilty conscience.
David Cardy's like a well-thatched version of Bob Hoskins. On first meeting any character he plays you make a mental note never to buy a "genuine Rolex" from this man; by the end he's produced a wider range of sympathy than you'd have imagined. His Ed walks innnocently through the turbulence around, like a serene angel dispensing incredible goodwill. If the later scenes are not quite convincing, it's always more difficult to play resignation than conflict, while Laurie Sansom's otherwise flowing production relies on white make-up rather than the actor's skills, over-egging the pudding.
This play might not have the ingenuity or driving compulsion underlying say Terry Johnson's Dead Funny (which employs irony similarly) but it's a more than sufficiently enjoyable look at the middle-classes facing death in the face of unsatisfactory lives.
Ed: David Cardy
Claudia: Clare Swinburne
Henri: Becky Hindley
Clive: David Sibley
Director: Laurie Sansom
Designer: Pip Leckenby
Lighting: Oliver Fenwick
Fight coach: Christopher Main
2005-08-31 15:13:23