SITTING PRETTY. To 19 February.
South/Midlands
SITTING PRETTY
by Amy Rosenthal
Palace Theatre To 12 February
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Wed 2.30pm & Sat 3pm
Audio-described 12 Feb 3pm
Stagetext 11 Feb
Talkback 8 Feb
then New Wolsey Theatre 15-19 February 2005
Tue-Sat 7.45pm Mat Wed & Sat
2.30pm
Runs 2hr 10min One interval
TICKETS: 01923 225671
www.watfordtheatre.co.uk (Watford)
01473 295900
www.wolseytheatre.co.uk (Ipswich)
Review: Timothy Ramsden 1 February
Still life in this play, though an overly-mannered production squeezes it dry.It's disconcerting to sit in a recently redeveloped theatre and find parts of the action invisible, if only for a few moments (and this was from the end of a row). Nevertheless, after 2 years and 8 million quid you think they'd have managed to get something so fundamental right; that a director thought worth hiring at the Palace would have such a basic competence within her grasp. And, indeed, that the artistic director would have checked before allowing such a thing to be perpetrated on members of his audiences.
(My own solution would be contractual: any seat from which there's an imperfect view of any kind would be sold nightly at a lower, restricted-view, price the reduction to be determined by the amount of restriction. Any consequent loss of revenue would be deducted from the director's fee).
Fortunately, the problem here was largely confined to the opening scene. Less happily, it gave way to more serious concern about director Tamara Harvey's grip on this script. In both previous productions I've seen (at Chelsea and Southampton) Amy Rosenthal's play has come over as a comic, humane portrait of two sisters undergoing a late-midlife seesaw in confidence.
Mid-50s Nancy begins her climb back from post-redundancy blank depression through misunderstanding an ad evening-class art teacher Philip leaves in a local café. Her generosity of temperament evokes a response even from the self-enclosed young biker in the life-class she joins. Meanwhile her art-historian sister Nina edges from self-reliance to a flight from commitment.
But Harvey's revival, played in front of designer Martin Johns' thematically fitting but unatmospheric art-history collage, offers a clutch of forced performances, mannerisms and contrived vocal cadences rather than natural characterisation, making for a lumpy evening.
Then, as late in act one we're being subjected to a tirade that's part of the year's worst piece of coarse acting (there can't be worse to come, surely, than this over-deliberate display, devoid of believability), Carteret's Nancy, realising she has to remove her clothes for the class, her face tight-drawn anxiety, body hunching agonised from the middle, slowly removes her model's robe. It may be a personally brave act for any mature actor; Carteret turns it into a work of art. Aided by Philip's casually-added lighting she physically expresses psychological release and reconnection with life.
Carteret blooms physically as her personality flowers; only when Nina walks in and discovers all does she slump into anxiety, nervously fingering her chiffon. It's a fine individual performance. Belinda Lang, too, infuses life into her sister, suggesting early on a sense of oppression in her response to a neighbour's over-fond attentions.
It's a shame they're surrounded by such mannered lifelessness. The cast includes actors who've done notable work with major companies like Shared Experience and the old Method and Madness, so goodness knows how it's happened. But it's a thundering disappointment.
Nina: Belinda Lang
Nancy: Anna Carteret
Martin: Philip bird
Sylvia: Richenda Carey
Luka: Bruce Godfree
Bridget: Kim Hartman
Max: Richard O' Callaghan
Josie: Pooky Quesnel
Philip: Simon Robson
Zelda: Natalia Tena
Director: Tamara Harvey
Designer: Martin Johns
Lighting: Chris Ellis
Sound/Music: Matt Clifford
2005-02-03 15:11:11