SALT To 20 February.

Manchester.

SALT
by Fiona Peek.

Royal Exchange Studio To 20 February 2010.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Thu & Sat 2.30pm.
Post-show discussion 15 Feb.
Runs 1hr 30min No interval.

TICKETS: 0161 833 9833.
www.royalexchenge.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 6 February.

Ingredients of four lives exposed to unglazed view.
With both sides open to view in Jo Combes’ premiere of Fiona Peek’s play about young professionals coming to terms with debt, in one case, and each other, emotional and financial pressures are clearly apparent. Money worries are hinted at during the first of the meals where two married couples, Simon and Amy plus Rachel and Nick, entertain each other.

At first the credit card fixes the mortgage; then the more affluent friends lend substantial help. It takes a commendable time for this to rub salt into the emotional wounds that open as blame and cross-affections emerge. Clearest measure of this is Nick, the journalist who’s been paid-off (except it’s without pay) and whose planned novel may or may not mature.

Rachel’s pregnancy frames the action, during which money matters and temperaments intertwine. Truths become naked, breasts are bared, metaphorically, as the world of the audience looks on, aware of their fellow viewers across the studio space. The detailed realism of Ben Stones’ kitchen set has saucepans being heated, while its single long table is the focus of the single violent eruption among these polite, sophisticated people.

Such positive-minded friends as they seek to be could be creating a little Eden, were it not for the usual pair of suspects (cash and passion) sliding in. Combes’ production paces each meal with fine attention to emotional temperatures, while the long staircase to where the children sleep providing a chance for energetic running in contrast to the slow-cooking conversations.

And it’s played with finely-graded realism. Kevin Harvey’s deep voice sets him apart as Nick, creative mind or self-obsessed to taste, and often to be seen hanging his head, or sitting sideways. Beth Cordingley and Simon Chadwick keep their characters’ lives, even keels disturbed by finding emotional security less tight than they’d thought, this side of smug, while Esther Hall’s Rachel might have walked right through the door from real-life, her nerves coated with angst-tinted sociability.

The production’s detailed realism occasionally tips into self-consciously directed Top Girls overlaps, and a few words are lost. But the point about these lives comes clearly through.

Amy: Beth Cordingley.
Nick: Kevin Harvey.
Rachel: Esther Hall.
Simon: Simon Chadwick.

Director: Jo Combes.
Designer: Ben Stones.
Lighting: Richard Owen.
Sound: Gerry Marsden.

2010-02-09 14:24:31