SOAP . To 9 October.
Scarborough
SOAP
by Sarah Woods
Stephen Joseph Theatre To 9 October 2004
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat 9 Oct 2.30pm
Audio-described 7 Oct, 9 Oct 2.30pm
BSL Signed 8 Oct
Runs 2hr 20min One interval
TICKETS: 01723 370541
tickets@sjt.uk.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 2 October
Enjoyable play pricks some soap-bubbles but could penetrate further.On the street where they live, in the bay where they surf, the characters of endless, uneventful TV soaps take over lives. They're used as examples of life's dilemmas, their experiences' are chronicled in tabloid newspapers for those who've managed to miss an episode. What has Sarah Woods to say that's new? It's a question seemingly answered as her play proceeds but which remains as the lights finally fade.
Woods cunningly parallels the gritty urban Brit-soap with the sunlit gold of Australia James Farncombe's contrastingly cold and glowing lights emphasise the contrast, while designer Jessica Curtis finds more set for us to watch in Crystal Bay than the trad-pub of England's Arthur Street.
Soon the situations become more absurd, the acting more cartoonish there's been a tendency for passing characters to nail each other face to face from the start. A tinge of the inexplicable enters the world of the everyday. It culminates in an Ayckbourn-like moment where pub landlady Lorna bursts from her London cellar on to the deck of Crystal Bay's best-known boat, the Jack Rabbit.
It's good fun, but it needs to be leading somewhere. Especially as tension builds between the short-scene back-and-forth cutting of TV soaps and the demand of a sustained stage act to move somewhere major. The destination emerges in the second act, largely set in a hospital (necessary dramatic clincher for serious soap-lines), where true love develops from the non-soap relationship between British and Australian protagonists. You can't help feeling Ayckbourn would have got here quicker, as the characters move into the 3-dimensional, rejecting their cliched existences.
Here too the play comes close to territory more thoroughly explored on film in The Truman Show. But if it finally fails to coagulate into something as great as the sum of its bubbles, Woods' play is inventively enjoyable and receives suitably registered performances from Russell Grant's outrageous drag Floss to Tim Faraday's forever secondary character interest handyman, with Sophie Duval contrasting British intrigue with southern hemisphere glamour and Claire Lams portraying teenagers moony-eyed and mixed-up, among an all-round fine cast well-marshalled by director Laurie Sansom.
Chris/Neale: Andrew Brooke
Annabel/Noleen: Sophie Duval
John/Ron: Tim Faraday
Floss/Peter: Russell Grant
Thorn: Ben Hull
Joely/Lisa: Claire Lams
Mary/Bunny: Susan Twist
Lorna: Hannah Waterman
Director: Laurie Sansom
Designer: Jessica Curtis
Lighting: James Farncombe
Music: Anders Sodergren
Assistant director: DeniseGilfoyle
2004-10-03 13:41:28