THE BENCH and THE PROPOSAL. To 24 August.

Edinburgh - Fringe

THE BEAR and THE PROPOSAL
by Anton Chekhov

benchtours at Brunton Theatre, Musselburgh Venue 191. To 24 August 2002
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Thu & Sat 2pm
Runs 1hr 25min No interval

TICKETS 0131 0131 665 2240
Review Timothy Ramsden 17 August

Chekhov as panto.? Sort of, and remarkably successfulI've had some experiences at Chekhov productions, but never till last night did they include being accosted for a few kopeks, comparing my jacket with an actor's for lice, or indeed having a shoulder wrenched and a cheek pinched (the latter in Bear character Smirnov's anti-dimple campaign).

Mind you, I avoided the squirting soda water and having Tim Licata's Lomov die all over me. Experimental, or what?

These plays, after all, are Chekhov the funster - described traditionally as 'vaudevilles', or here as 'ridiculously funny one-act jokes'.

Earlier this year, I didn't much go for this company's Cherry Orchard, despite its having the ace Gerry Mulgrew as director (he was in last night's audience too, dodging an indigent actor's attention only by climbing over seats). So it's good to find this double-bill (which has already toured Scotland) showing them in ripping form.

While there's a paciness to the shows, there's never a sense of hurry - apart from the between-plays deliberately frantic onstage set and costume change, again done with audience conscription.

Director Clerke and his high-energy cast may never slacken concentration, but they're rightly unafraid to give moments time to breathe comic life. In The Proposal for instance we catch Licata's servant waiting through his mistress's elongated sighs for her dead husband with a thin layer of patience, then showing real sympathy when Popova speaks of her husband's ill-treatment of her.

It's a neatly-caught detail to put alongside the hectic fun elsewhere, showing these plays are treated sensitively as well as farcically.

And Catherine Gillard's litany of her dear departed's misdeeds leads her into a hard-edged vocal tone, making clear she's using her deep and extended mourning as an act of revenge.

Gillard's fine too as the spinster-in-the-making Natalya in The Proposal, her furious one-uppersonship with her neighbour melting when she knows marriage is on the table.

Add Licata's palpitating suitor and Stewart Ennis, who follows a tour de force (or tour-de-forcing the audience) in The Bear with the eager country father desperately calling for celebratory champagne even as he keeps the two young intended from each others' throats, and you have a rare recipe for laughter which Dr Chekhov would surely have been happy to prescribe all round.

Smirnov/Chubukov: Stewart Ennis
Popova/Natalya: Catherine Gillard
Luka/Lomov: Tim Licata

Director: Peter Clerks
Designer/Costume: Iain Halket
Lighting: Stuart Nairn

2002-08-18 11:35:15