SOAP. To 24 March.

Northampton

SOAP
by Sarah Woods

Royal Theatre To 24 March 2007
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat 17 March 2.30pm
Runs 1hr 50min One interval

TICKETS: 01604 624811
www.royalandderngate.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 15 March

Soap with substance makes for a bright evening.
Reviews often suggest a play would be improved by being 20 minutes shorter. Here’s one that’s lost half an hour since its Scarborough premiere (with the same director, Laurie Sansom). And it works. Sarah Woods’ revisited story of 2 soap operas is smarter and more focussed, while a proscenium arch stage with revolving set serves it better than did the Stephen Joseph’s theatre-in-the-round.

The locations remain: Arthur Street is brick-built urban England while Crystal Bay is Australian sun, sea and overflowing cheer. The dowdy British pub and brightly flamboyant south-hemisphere bar contrast their societies, the one all enclosed, the other open to sea-breezes and sunlight.

Sansom’s cast (some well-acquainted via their working lives with the streets where their characters live) find just the right pitch for the opening scenes, straight out of soap-lines, plus the sudden anomie which strikes when a few start having doubts about their in-the-moment lives. Biographical details change, intended activities are questioned, and uneasy puzzlement starts filtering into stock expressions.

As this happens the action takes a sinister turn, with Arthur Street’s vengeful Annabel throwing her rival into a cellar, only to have her emerge amid-ships down-under. It’s from here a realistic relationship forms amid the story-strands of fantasy.

In its new form it’s easier to see the play as something more than just fun with the realistic-seeming unreality of soaps. It certainly acts as a critique of the never-ending serial where characters take over from story, while themselves being pliable to fit the needs of the next few episodes.

But, as Lorna and Thorn find individuality when they form a relationship outside script-doctors’ parameters, a wider point emerges about the way stereotypes and presuppositions constrict the imagination and sense of self. Soaps, fashion, social expectations, peer pressure are both props and bars to the individual.

In its 3 ‘episodes’ this play, and Sansom’s aptly-acted production, make the point while entertaining handsomely up to Lorna and Thorn’s final escape from the whole world of fantasy as they step hand-in-hand out of the theatre’s picture-frame into the real world of their audience: fairy-tale ending and new reality.

Lorna: Lucy Speed
Thorn: Paul Fox
Chris/Neale: Marc Bannerman
Floss/Peter: Mike Burnside
Joely/Lisa: Louise Callaghan
John/Ron: Stephen Critchlow
Mary/Bunny: Janice McKenzie
Annabel/Noleen: Natalie Walter
Extras: Sharon Corrodus, Paul Ennerver

Director: Laurie Sansom
Designer: Philip Witcomb
Lighting: Colin Grenfell
Sound/Composer: Anders Sodergren
Assistant director: Mike Hayhurst

2007-03-17 09:25:05