THE STAR THROWERS. Scarborough to 2 March.

Scarborough

THE STAR THROWERS
by Paul Lucas

Stephen Joseph Theatre To 2 March 2002
Runs 1hr 20min No interval

TICKETS 01723 370541
Review Timothy Ramsden 22 February

Fine performances in a startling premiere that justifies Scarborough's new play project.This middle slice of the SJT's winter 'firstfoot' season puts a foot in the door for a kind of drama unusual at Alan Ayckbourn's home of realistic comedy. There have been plenty of robots, androids and time-creatures in his own plays but you always know where you are with them, while his humans are firmly set in society.

It's not like that in Paul Lucas's world. His characters live over the edge of society, fearful of visitors who bring trouble and unwelcome demands. And never more so than with Jess and Tom in his latest play. Voluntary hermits on a lonely coastline, they care for starfish which they patiently transport to a bath between high tides.

Humans they'd rather ignore. When one crawls alongside their home, Jess steps on him as if oblivious, becoming angered when Tom engages with, ie talks to, him. As the newcomer's dying of a gun-wound she may have a point.

Lots of humour arises from the way this unlikely situation develops through everyday idiom and cliché. Eleanor Tremain and Ed Waters enhance the offbeat lines by playing them with calm reason in Timothy Sheader's beautifully controlled production. Sheader directs the piece as if he's telling a whopper of a lie but never lets the slightest smile betray him. It's like entering a farce mid-way, when a crazy whirl of events is being treated as the product of complete rationality.

Except Lucas leads with his dialogue, usually an event or two ahead of the action. Commonplace overall, the weirdness is in the detail - 'It's never dog eat dog with bees.'

Some way in, The Star Throwers still seems as if it might be an extended sketch without the development a play needs. That finally comes as the slippery Slippy becomes an ex-character and takes on a wider dimension of human evil. Then with a shock Jess and Tom move from being suburban sweeties dislocated from society to a dysfunctional nightmare couple, with a swingeingly sour curtain line that shows the nightmare of idealism turned rancid by isolation. A play, and a writer, to watch.

Slippy: Fred Ridgeway
Jess: Eleanor Tremain
Tom: Ed Waters

Director: Timothy Sheader
Designer: Pip Leckenby
Lighting: Dave Jackson
Costume: Christine Wall

2002-02-25 17:15:59