SEPARATE TABLES To 3 October.
Chichester.
SEPARATE TABLES
by Terence Rattigan.
Chichester Festival Theatre To 3 October 2009.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat & 26 Sept, 1 Oct 2pm.
Audio-described 25 Sept, 26 Sept 2pm, 2 Oct, 3 Oct 2pm.
BSL Signed 26 Sept 7.30pm.
Runs 2hr 45min One interval.
TICKETS: 01243 781312.
www.cft.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 19 September.
South coast solidarity as Chichester does Bournemouth proud.
Watching director Philip Franks’ Chichester revival it’s easy to see why the mid-1950s theatre establishment took against the new wave of drama. Terence Rattigan’s 1954 two-in-one play is finely structured and nuanced.
Minor characters all have moments requiring their separate existence as more than fillers for the Bournemouth Hotel with its elderly permanent guests, while the two acts, set 18 months apart, are hinged by hotel manager, Miss Cooper. Deborah Findlay never ruffles her exterior when making brave decisions, one quietly self-sacrificial, or taking a courageous stand that sees off popular prejudice.
Yet this play also shows the need for a new drama. Its young characters are the weakest-written and while each play has a ‘happy’ conclusion, this little world’s unchanging nature brings an overarching sense of sadness.
Franks’ revival succeeds almost despite its main characters. Stephanie Cole brings a stiff-backed, unrelenting starchiness to her character, an empty shell of prejudice as well as full-time busybody. And she finds, of course, maximum humour in any line. But for all her qualities, an underlying sympathy remains even as she stalks out, defeated, keeping her from being a really ruthless Railton-Bell. Within that she gives a fine performance.
Gina McKee might be made for the fading glamour of the first act’s Mrs Shankland, but striking as she appears the agony of her past and the present it’s brought her to are slightly muted. Maybe it's deliberate, but even in Rattigan’s restrained terms it seems a bit too controlled. Yet her Sybil, pasty-faced scion of Cole’s dreadful character, kept under her mother’s wing, which is less protective than smothering, ought to be outside McKee’s range. And there’s a deliberate quality to the galumphing movement. But McKee gives Sybil an apt lumpy quality and a sympathy most acute as she sits silent, hearing her one friend destroyed by those around.
Only Iain Glen really fails to convince, with externalised portrayals of both his rough socialist journalist and fake Major had up in court (Franks follows Manchester’s Royal Exchange in using Rattigan’s American revision, with young men rather than women as the subject of Pollock’s arrest).
But what riches around. John Nettleton, Veronica Roberts and Josephine Tewson are notable among actors who make sitting, walking, reacting and the most mundane-seeming moments of dialogue live, while each placing key moments with precise emphasis. Such playing by such a fine company binds these separate tables firmly together.
Act I: Table by the Window
Mabel: Connie Walker.
Lady Matheson: Josephine Tewson.
Mrs Railton-Bell: Stephanie Cole.
Miss Meacham: Veronica Roberts.
Doreen: Lia Rogers.
Mr Fowler: John Nettleton.
Anne Shankland: Gina McKee.
Miss Cooper: Deborah Findlay.
John Malcolm: Iain Glen.
Charles Stratton: Geoff Breton.
Jean Tanner: Holly Goss.
Act II Table ~Number Seven
Jean Stratton: Holly Goss.
Charles Stratton: Geoff Breton.
Major Pollock: Iain Glen.
Mr Fowler: John Nettleton.
Miss Cooper: Deborah Findlay.
Mrs Railton-Bell: Stephanie Cole.
Sybil Railton-Bell: Gina McKee.
Lady Matheson: Josephine Tewson.
Miss Meacham: Veronica Roberts.
Mabel: Connie Walker.
Doreen: Lia Rogers.
Hotel GFuests: Sarah Blackford, Lawrence Tate.
Director: Philip Franks.
Designer: Stephen Brimson-Lewis.
Lighting: Paul Pyant.
Sound: Jonathan Suffolk.
Composer: Matthew Scott.
2009-09-21 11:19:15