SEDUCED. To 28 October.

London

SEDUCED
by Michael Kingsbury

Finborough Theatre 118 Finborough Road SW10 9ED To 28 October 2006
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Sun 3.30pm
Runs 1hr 45min One interval

TICKETS: 0870 4000 838
www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 22 October

Showing sex and seduction are easy, but life’s an uphill struggle.
With sex, being young and lovely brings high status. When it comes to social status, being educated and wealthy do the trick. Such generalisations work for Michael Kingsbury’s play, which interweaves the desires of suave middle-age Islington couple Naomi and Matthew and young Ryan and Kelly from down Walworth way.

Their unlikely combination’s brought about by adverts for a night’s partner-swapping. The Islington characters need to inject energy in to their idling, childless marriage. The younger pair are gorgeous and, as anyone but a fool could tell, arrive with their own agenda. But anyone in love, or caught up in sexual desire, can be a fool.

It’s only when Ryan finally snaps, rejecting yet another come-on from aging Naomi that she sees, with instant clarity, what they’re after. Meanwhile, as women will do, Kelly’s kept the show on the road - or the bed - more successfully, leaving Matthew in his happy delusion.

Simple enough. But there’s also the matter of how far the young people are seduced by the easy, affluent lifestyle they’re temporarily bathed in. And Ryan’s mentally sharp. He picks up on Matthew’s description of his work as an Industrial Psychologist with its philosophy that everyone’s part of a big team, testing how far it would work in practice. It doesn’t take him long to undermine the older man’s free tuition in life-skills by turning the questions on the guru.

Seduced’s seductive quality lies largely in the ambiguity of how much the younger people’s original motives are modified by their experience. Jealousy, strongly denied of course, lurks constantly around. Kingsbury’s own production displays the tensions between Naomi and Matthew from their first edgy dialogue, then questions how much collusion and how much spontaneity Ryan and Kelly show.

There are four first-class performances. Julia Swift’s Naomi darts acrid discontent at her husband while sweetly curling in on Ryan. Robin Sneller’s Matthew seems reasonable till he wants his own way, whether to remove or keep the newcomers, while, as the more complex younger couple, Simon Quarterman and MyAnna Buring contrast his alternating eagerness to please and anger with her sweetly-sustained determination.

Naomi: Julia Swift
Matthew: Robin Sneller
Ryan: Simon Quarterman
Kelly: MuAnna Buring

Director: Michael Kingsbury
Designer: Polly Sullivan
Lighting: Jason Taylor
Sound: Mike Keniger

2006-10-23 00:42:27