PRIVATE FEARS IN PUBLIC PLACES. To 4 September.
Scarborough
PRIVATE FEARS IN PUBLIC PLACES
by Alan Ayckbourn
Stephen Joseph Theatre To 4 September 2004
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat 2.30pm
Runs 1hr 55min No interval
TICKETS: 01723 370541
Review: Timothy Ramsden 26 August
Bleakly comic look at respectable lives in a non-society.Though Alan Ayckbourn's often experimented with the design of his plays, this is in a way his most extreme formal experiment yet. The single-act full-length play is far from unknown in theatre, but this is the first time the comfortable, audience-friendly Scarborough operation has denied its viewers the security of a mid-action break. Yet it seems inevitable in this play, with its intertwining stories.
Each character is seen on show at work and living a life of quiet desperation in private. Nothing could be more formally polite than the opening, where a client is being shown round a smart London flat by an ingratiating estate agent. Yet her grumbles about lunch and her partner's no-show, her clear unconcern about the rest of humanity, together with his nervousness instigate unease alongside the comedy.
Lives are compartmentalised in an urban world with no sense of community. Family relationships are cold and hold together out of necessity. People cope with, rather than live, their lives. That's expressed in the staging; every location is represented by one piece of furniture. All are constantly on stage. Yet each is separate, picked out for its moments of fame by the stark lighting, from smart hotel bar to functional kitchen table (maybe significantly, these connect in the life of one person).
These fears and miseries of modern life are sometimes familiar, like the unacknowledged secret implied in barman Ambrose's pas (for all his suave unconcern on duty). Or surprising, as with the deeply Christian Charlotte, polite if repressed estate agency worker by day, charitable parent-sitter with Ambrose's grumpy dad by night. If the chain of relationships stops anywhere, it's in Charlotte's private life. Though she communes with God; a guilt-laden affair judging by the way libido squeezes from her elsewhere.
Though the posher voices seem imposed on the characters, and it would be useful to know just how wealthy smart flat-seekers Nicola and Dan are (he never pays off his drinks slate and comments on hotel-room prices), Ayckbourn and his cast create these small, middle-class worlds of concealed fears and quashed hopes with remarkable success.
Nicola: Melanie Gutteridge
Stewart: Paul Kemp
Dan: Stephen Beckett
Ambrose: Adrian McLoughlin
Charlotte: Billie-Claire Wright
Imogen: Sarah Moyle
Director: Alan Ayckbourn
Designer: Pip Leckenby
Lighting: Mick Hughes
Music: John Pattison
Costume: Christine Wall
2004-08-31 17:27:53