THE FEAST OF SNAILS. Lyric Theatre to 23 March.

London

THE FEAST OF SNAILS
by Olaf Olafsson

Lyric Theatre Now closing 16 March 2002
Runs 1hr 45min No interval

TICKETS 0870 890 1107
Review Timothy Ramsden 20 February 2002

An old-fashioned piece whose significance is less than its sense of self-importance.Context is meaning, and for Olafsson I have only what the programme gives. In Iceland he is a celebrated and popular novelist. Opening extracts from two novels show narrators obsessed with their feelings.

His play opposes contrasting characters, the wealthy businessman Johnson, member of an exclusive international dining club who usually eats with them in spirit from his magnificent, art-bestrewn Reykjavik home, and Paulsen, an unexpected visitor before one such meal, who brings important news for his host to consume.

Alas, Johnson's self-obsession recalls those novel extracts. For all David Warner's authority, this is not Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman (a role more worthy of Warner). Johnson has built up businesses but has a fervent belief in genes. His weak brother was a mistake. His hope is his son, destined to continue the family might and the name Karl.

But young Karl is not quite who his father thinks. This might have begun an interesting dramatic process; for Olaffson it's the culminating revelation. As Johnson has been so self-important from the start, someone whose presence you'd tolerate only if you were to sign a very lucrative deal with him, the revelation has little impact.

He's also grubbily lecherous, with a clumsiness that allows Siwan Morris's tactful young Rosa to be polite to him as employer and still evade his grasp with ease.

This is a novelist's play in the worst sense. Self-obsession on stage, on the realistic stage anyway, with no access to internal mental processes, makes for speedy loss of sympathy and dry characterisation. It's left to Warner to indicate why someone settling in pernickety fashion to a formal meal with five forms of snails on the menu should switch from hostility to his visitor and invite him to dine.

Sorcha Cusack is very capable in a part that she could handle in her sleep (not that she does – that's a comment on the writing, not her acting). Philip Glenister manages to invigorate the initially overawed, eventually assertive visitor with life in a fine performance. But even the best acting cannot greatly enrich such ponderously thin material.

Karl Johnson: David Warner
David Paulsen: Philip Glenister
Katrin: Sorcha Cusack
Rosa: Siwan Morris

Director: Ron Daniels
Designer: Ashley Martin-Davis
Lighting: Peter Mumford
Sound: John Leonard

2002-02-24 12:58:37