SALONIKA. To 16 February.

Leeds.

SALONIKA
by Louise Page.

West Yorkshire Playhouse (Courtyard Theatre) To 16 February 2008.
Mon-at 7.45pm Mat Thu 2pm & Sat 2.30pm.
Audio-described 7 Feb 7.45pm.
BSL Signed 1 Feb.
Captioned 14 Feb 7.45pm.
Runs 2hr 15min One interval.

TICKET: 0113 213 7700.
www.wyp.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 31 January.

The sands of time on a beach in Salonika.
If a career problem for women actors is the drying-up of significant roles for the mature, Louise Page played her part a quarter-century back with this drama. The central roles are Charlotte, 84, and daughter Enid, just 20 years less old and traipsing behind her mother as she revisits the killing-field – or beach – of Salonika, where her husband, and Enid’s father (whom she never saw), was killed during the entrenched warfare of 1916-18.

It’s ironic the women are first seen walking with a deck-chair onto a beach where young Peter is sunning his bare body. Penniless, he’s turning his life into a purposeless holiday (Great War Western Front soldiers called the troops in Salonika holidaymakers).

But as the long-dead Ben shoots up through the sand, a present yet absent member of this meeting on the beach, questions of what might have been arise, and how history’s intervention in people’s lives determines their course.

The only jarring note is the arrival of Charlotte’s present-day suitor, Leonard. He forms a contrast to Ben. Long-lost youthful love and the creation of a child her father never saw on one side, visualised in Paul Fox’s youthful smartness. And compromises for the sake of companionship in old-age, in Fred Pearson’s insistent character. But, being alive, he can’t pop-up unexpectedly, so Page devises an unlikely story of travel out from England.

There’s decent playing from both young men, though Pearson adopts an overly-gestural approach to Leonard, as if no point can be made by words alone. But the heart of Nikolai Foster’s sympathetic production is the two women. Josephine Tewson finds and points-up the comic moments in Charlotte’s dialogue, a reminder of the lively young person of 1918, while Lynn Farleigh’s deeply-felt Enid is a moving study that shows the long-term impact of what was lost.

Peter: Daniel Bayle.
Charlotte: Josephine Tewson.
Enid: Lynn Farleigh.
Ben: Paul Fox.
Leonard: Fred Pearson.

Director: Nikolai Foster.
Designer: Colin Richmond.
Lighting: James Whiteside.
Sound/Video: Mic Pool.
Composer: Grant Oulding.

2008-02-12 11:19:52