THE OLD LADIES touring till 29 November
Touring to Poole and Woking
TEG Productions presents
THE OLD LADIES
by Rodney Ackland based on the novel by Hugh Walpole
Tours to week beginning 24 November
Runs 2hrs 15 min One interval
Review Hazel Brown 18 November 2003 at Lighthouse, Poole
Despite presence of three stars this play does not even glimmer
Written in 1934 by Rodney Ackland, the rhythms and resonances of this play creak and groan like the doors on the set and, despite the presence of three great acting stars, does not even glimmer. Billed as a thriller and an examination of fear, it hardly ignites these emotions.
Given this unpromising material, the three actresses do the best they can with what they have. Rosemary Leach is sympathetic, generous and engaging, whilst Angela Thorne is spinsterly and as timid as a mouse as the newcomer to the house, both contrasting nicely with gravel-voiced Sian Phillips as the loud, rude and intrusive Mrs Payne. The three women are isolated in genteel, extreme poverty in a cathedral town somewhere in England in the 1920's, two are widows, dealing with their loss in different ways, whilst the newcomer, May, prattles nervously on about her former life and hopes vainly to procure a job as a companion.
The play shows with clarity and understanding the lot of these elderly middle class women with no income, no family to support them and facing a life of little hope and loneliness in tatty, cold bedsits, in the days before the welfare state. How they help, support and prey upon one another has the ring of truth. However, the plot, such as it is, scarcely holds the attention or, in the end, provides any thrills. The only pleasure to be had is to see three such talented actresses at work on the stage, but what a pity it is so dark and perilously cluttered I constantly feared that Sian Phillips would rock her chair off the upper level. The direction seems too faithful to the original productions and, as a result, the character played by Sian Phillips comes across as comic, rather than sinister or threatening.
CAST
May Beringer: Angela Thorne
Lucy Amorest: Rosemary Leach
Agatha Payne: Sian Phillips
Director: Frith Banbury
Designer: Norman Coates
Lighting designer: Oliver Fenwick
Sound Designer: Tom Lishman
2003-11-22 15:52:12