TRUE LOVE LIES. To 21 February.
Manchester.
TRUE LOVE LIES
by Brad Fraser.
Royal Exchange Theatre To 21 February 2009.
Mon-Fri 7.30pm Sat 8pm Mat Wed 2.30pm, Sat 4pm.
Audio-described 7 Feb 4pm.
BSL Signed 14 Feb 4pm.
Post-show Discussion: 19 Feb.
Runs 2hr One interval.
TICKETS: 0161 833 9833.
www.royalexchange.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 2 February.
Light touch on serious business.
Though it was Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre under Ian Brown (now at the West Yorkshire Playhouse) that first brought Canadian playwright Brad Fraser to prominence in Britain, Manchester’s Royal Exchange has become his UK home over the years.
Two things surprise about Fraser. The first is the way he discovers new angles on his chosen territory, the gay and straight relationships of urban Canadian sophisticates, and the interplay between different sexualities.
Then there’s his ability to write for theatre in what would seem an unpromisingly televisual style: short scenes with often brief lines of dialogue, including witty exchanges. Yet Fraser produces dramas that have the toughness, texture and substance theatre needs. The result is a fast-flowing, often funny action where smartness never hides the smarts and bruises relationships can bring.
Both in Brown and, at the Exchange in Braham Murray, Fraser’s had directors who can ensure the richness comes through a lightness of production and acting that creates a sense of real feelings together with a sense of fragility, that’s caught here too in Johanna Bryant’s transparent and stylish furniture, which splits the stage between the new restaurant where David rules alone and the home of Kane, his wife Carolyn and two children-going-on-adult offspring.
One of those, daughter Madison, asks David for a job. Turned down when he discovers who her father is, Madison deduces the men’s past relationship, opening-up a complex of deceits and self-deceptions, down to David’s youthful appearance. Settled middle-age lives are disrupted by the young in their journey towards adult life.
Madison tries most things at least once, insisting on filling her father’s place with David, while son Royce, slumping around in discontent, finds all sex repulsive. Even he can’t finally avoid some sort of a relationship, while the production emphasises the separate worlds through the assertive leaving and entering at different theatre doors when someone moves between workplace and home.
Oliver Gomm slouches, coat at half-mast drooling his malcontent until seeking out David in spitting rage, while Amy Beth Hayes fizzes with youthful discovery. But all Murray’s cast is excellent in this serious comedy of embarrassment and desire.
David: Jonny Phillips.
Kane: John Kirk.
Carolyn: Teresa Banham.
Madison: Amy Beth Hayes.
Royce: Oliver Gomm.
Director: Braham Murray.
Designer: Johanna Bryant.
Lighting: Richard Owen.
Sound: Steve Brown.
Dialect: Jan Haydn Rowles.
Fights: Renny Krupinski.
2009-02-07 11:29:47