THE COUNTRY WIFE. To 30 October.

Watford

THE COUNTRY WIFE
by William Wycherley new version by Tanika Gupta

Palace Theatre To 30 October 2004
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Wed 2.30pm & Sat 3pm
Audio-described 30 Oct 3pm
Post-show Talkback 19 Oct
Runs 2hr 20min One interval

TICKETS: 01923 225671
www.watfordtheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 13 October

A revamped theatre has still to provide a stimulating evening's drama.The Theatre

You can still get something decent in Watford for £8.7 million. Two years on the Palace Theatre re-opens with chic modern minimalism replacing the former fusty Edwardianism. In the auditorium there's new, comfortable bright red seating while the gilded decoration has a new subdued metallic quality. Whether through structural changes or the design for this production, stage and stalls seem more intimately linked. The foyer is opened up to a café area on one side and a generally more open, welcoming feel.

There are downsides. The ticket office is out of the way and unsigned (the disabled access ramp towards the ticket office is marked Fire Control Panel' take the wrong direction and you'd have to fight through the crowds. And it's very close to both a stalls door and a passage to upper levels on a crowded evening picking up tickets could be a hectic affair. The only Men's toilet I found was more constricted than in the old building a bottleneck astonishing in a recently remodelled building.

Still, with the snaking light sculpture as you enter the only feature in a rather blank first impression the new design certainly carries a more inclusive, youthful feel. That's something artistic director Lawrence Till has gone for in his opening production, a new version of William Wycherley's bawdy 1675 comedy of a rake who gets through husbands' guard letting it be thought he's impotent.

The Production

Tanika Gupta scored a success with her British-Asian treatment of Hobson's Choice last year. Here she's taken the same route with a stylish comedy where wit and elegance are all. But Gupta's dialogue is flat, including jokes so old they don't even convince as a way of judging the characters who speak them. Changing Hardeep's malady' from a physical condition to a religious vision makes the whole conceit totter. And cool modern youth don't give the scope for the linguistic flourishes that make Wycherley's style integral to his substance.

Without expressive language there is nowhere for Richard Sumitro's gullible Sparks to go but whining on and on like a simpleton. Or for Rohan Siva's Alok to be more than tediously suspicious. Nor can the two sensible characters, Aleesha and Baz, assert their rationality without an appropriate style.

What's left is a lot of people hanging around on a neutral space. With the stage occupied only by a grand piano and chill-cabinet, any sense of location is lost. Characters seem to arrive arbitrarily and unannounced in each other's houses. Only three wardrobes at the back, used as entries to private rooms, sometimes where people are locked up, help the action by providing some sense of confinement and secrecy

It often seems like a student improvisation, lacking energy and coherence, with a sense of confusion in the acting and at times the positioning. Movement is slack, speech lacks conviction and too often sounds like feeble lines thought up keep the whole thing going somehow.

The energy goes into externals. Texting is used neatly, replacing the important letter-writing in Wycherley. There's some exciting projection and the final explosion in to a musical sequence (there have been snatches of rap and song earlier) suggests this is what the piece wanted to be all along. Until then it's lacklustre and confused, such energy as there is being put into external theatricality rather than dramatic energy. Watford can surely do better than this dismal opening show.

Hardeep: Stephen Rahman-Hughes
Quack: Ryan Early
Jazzy: Mark Monero
Daisy: Elizabeth Cooper-Gee
Dolly: Marianne Benedict
Baz: Marvin Springer
Dorilant: Adam C Booth
Sparks: Richard Sumitro
Alok: Rohan Siva
Preethi: Amanda Gordon
Alesha: Yasmin Wilde

Director: Lawrence Till
Designer: Richard Foxton
Lighting/Projections: Jon Driscoll
Composer: Dominic Muldowney
Choreographers: John Thompson, Geeta Pendaer
Assistant directors: Mahlon Prince, Amy Leach

2004-10-15 01:10:14