Traffic and Weather: till 12 April

Manchester

TRAFFIC AND WEATHER
by Leigh Symonds

Homegrown Theatre at Library Theatre To 12 April 2003
Runs 1hr 40min One interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 12 April

Within its boundaries a sharp, well-acted new play.
Whatever Pinter people get up to between pauses to conceal meaning, most of us cover the awkward spaces by drooling on about the weather, with traffic a closeish second (remember Pinter's long descriptions of routes round London). Leigh Symonds has fashioned a neat, if limited-scope play, round this.

At its centre are Christmas visits by Manchester teacher Richard and wife Sophie to his brother Chris, whose in building and down in Suffolk. Cue talk of motorways, the A14 and B-roads. The same cue annually, opening identical conversational gambits and dialogue. Chris says business is good, Richard makes empty-smiling claims to find teaching rewarding, Sophie can't remember where the lavatory is.

Body language becomes as contorted as lexicography is restricted. Gestures and moves are exaggerated, Chris doing knee-bends as he leans on the sofa-back, or leaping across it to sit, Richard standing hand in pocket, in a hip-scrunching, spine-inclining zigzag, Sophie orchestrating manic smiles and gestures or looking away from the men in a distraction going on despair.

No wonder she's not there third time round. Separation or divorce has intervened. Separation permeates the play, from family awkwardness up. For the stage is shared by the dead, who speak what they feel and behave more naturally than the living. Between two Christnasses Sophie's mother joins the one character dead from the word go the brothers' great-grandfather, killed in the First World War when the son he doted on was still a baby.

The living never refer that far back, making only scattered, casual references to the brorher's grandfather, the son their onstage ancestor talks of in generation-reversed mourning, the sadness of the dead for the loss of the living.

Homegrown provide a fine cast (author included) who catch the moments of comic absurdity to which the awkwardness of intimacy drives people. Nick Moss's production is less successful with the post-mortem characters; Gary Cargill's forebear (rightly shown as still young in death) has a different, serious style of speech which needs more binding into the action than he's allowed seated at the side, with an occasional, unfruitful excursion to Chris's sofa.

David: Gary Cargill
Richard: Leigh Symonds
Chris: Graeme Hawley
Sophie: Kate Williamson
Nan: June Broughton

Director: Nick Moss
Designer: Hilli McManus
Lighting: Jake Taylor
Costume: Zoe Henry

2003-04-16 20:34:11