RELATIVELY SPEAKING. To 4 April.

Bury St Edmunds.

RELATIVELY SPEAKING
by Alan Ayckbourn.

Theatre Royal To 4 April 2009.
7.30pm Mat Sat 2.30pm.
Audio-described 4 April 2.30pm.
Runs 2hr 25min One interval.

TICKETS: 01284 769505.
www.theatreroyal.org
Review: Timothy Ramsden 2 April.

A successful production, speaking relatively.
Shortly before his early death, theatre-in-the-round guru Stephen Joseph encouraged one of his young actors, Alan Ayckbourn, to write a play as pure entertainment for holidaymakers. In-the-round performances were novel at the time, so experiment went hand-in-hand with popularity in this resulting comedy.

And there’s a kind of experiment in putting a play written for the round on Bury St Edmunds’ 1819 stage: a play from the post picture-frame stage on one that had not yet retreated behind a proscenium arch from its, admittedly single-sided, audience.

Director Colin Blumenau somehow affords a production running one week only, arousing gales of audience laughter from the story of innocent young Greg, girl-friend Ginny, trying to recover her innocence, and the older, wealthier Sheila and Philip, whom Greg believes are Ginny’s parents, whereas the truth is neither so pure nor so simple.

Unsurprisingly, the two angled screens backing the action and the minimised furnishings and décor, smack of economy, though designer Libby Watson uses John Bramley’s lighting to pass their floral designs off as wallpaper for the London flat opening, before they represent the Buckinghamshire garden where most of the comic misadventures take place.

The simple staging emphasises Ayckbourn’s skill, even near the start of his playwriting career, in sustaining misunderstandings, and making entries and exits seem natural, while often using them to make comic moments. All that’s needed is for the characters to flow with an equally natural feel. These are real people of the mid-sixties; polite young adults finding their way in the complexities of this southern English middle-class world, and older people caught-up in the complexities of their lives.

All seek a resolution, and Ayckbourn delightfully weaves the human intricacies in modern society’s approximation to a Forest of Arden rather than in the naughty city. Here, the action’s somewhat hindered by both male characters being played with a forced energy more fitting to farce. But Amy Humphreys and Mary Ryder give the women a respective innocence-in-guilt and sophisticated increase in understanding as events weave on. And Blumenau’s production adds its own note in the darker suggestions of the closing moments.

Greg: Alexander Caine.
Ginny: Amy Humphreys.
Sheila: Mary Ryder.
Philip: Tim Frances.

Director: Colin Blumenau.
Designer: Libby Watson.
Lighting: John Bramley.

2009-04-04 11:40:33