STRANGE ORCHESTRA. To 20 March.

London

STRANGE ORCHESTRA
by Rodney Ackland

Orange Tree Theatre To 20 March 2004
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat at 4pm + 19, 26 February, with post-show discussion 2.30pm
Audio-described: 28 February 4pm & 2 March
Post-show discussion 12 March
Runs 2hr 35min One interval

TICKETS: 020 8940 3633
Review: Timothy Ramsden 13 February

Largely successful revival of a powerful piece by a still-underrated playwright.Alongside Patrick Hamilton (mainly a novelist), Rodney Ackland must have been the most depressive dramatist of the pre-Royal Court era. Highbrow' they called him. And Chekhovian', which sounds suspiciously like code for extreme gloom. This 1931 drama serves up a double failed suicide, treated almost as a sideshow, suddenly-striking blindness and betrayed love, with deceit, death and destroyed illusion, up to a sour ending where misery takes refuge in a whirl of impromptu partying.

For bitterness under a merry veneer this ending's approached only by Ayckbourn's Absurd Person Singular. Ellie Jones' production frequently tilts the preceding mood towards comedy. Most obviously, Caitlin Mottram's fly-brained Sylvia becomes something of a comic turn, but possible humour is seized on throughout.

The setting's an artists' lodging-house run by ex-whore Vera Linden her oldest profession's revealed late on, but Ishia Bennison's raddled seductiveness, flighty favouritism and sharp edge has us well prepared.

Isn't poverty devastating? Vera asks. It keeps the struggling artists banded together in her easygoing home, where she makes up her bed on the sofa each night to have another room to let then collects or varies rents, evicts and relents according to her mood and likings.

Ragged-tempered actress Freda, sharp-mannered, self-consciously left-leaning Esther and vulnerable, blinded Jenny or ever-strumming George, writer Val anxiously awaiting a chance of publication, even the conman who takes young women for a ride with his good looks and eager manner; all contribute their personalities to the action's discordant sound, playing dark or perky tunes over desolate harmonies.

It's these Jones' production doesn't always develop. As with Chekhov, it's better to find the comedy and allow seriousness to seep through than go for gloom direct. Yet, close-up these people's follies make laughs emerge easily, the pain remain at times unnoticed then shoot shrilly out. Bennison captures the mix - and Vera, with her theory of people evolving', sums up the scene, and life, with naturalistic reductiveness: In the end, you've got yourself'.

Claudia Elmhirst's Jenny provides a stabilising contrast to the temperaments around. In the end, though, it's the ensemble and Ackland's writing that make the evening.

Vera: Ishia Bennison
George: Christopher Harper
Val: Luke Healy
Esther: Laura Rees
Freda: Katherine Tozer
Laura: Louise Bolton
Jimmie: Jonathan Broadbent
Gordon: Adam Shipway
Jenny: Claudia Elmhirst
Peter: Ian Duncan
Sylvia: Caitlin Mottram

Director: Ellie Jones
Designer: Sam Dowson
Lighting: John Harris
Composer: Dominic Haslam

2004-02-15 01:13:11