TWO. To 28 May.

Bolton

TWO
by Jim Cartwright

Octagon Theatre To 28 May 2005
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat 21, 25 May 2pm
Audio-described 25 May 7.30pm
BSL Signed 18 May
Runs 1hr 50min One interval

TICKETS: 01604 520661
www.octagonbolton.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 14 May

No half measures in the Octagon's happy hour revival.16 years on here's a second round at the Octagon for local dramatist Jim Cartwright's pub play, its two actors doubling landlord and landlady with various customers during a busy night's drinking down the local. Emma Atkins and Simeon Truby do the script proud, especially in the rapid-fire opening where keeping multiple imaginary throats lubricated requires a deft choreography that also reveals the animosity between mine host and hostess.

It's the kind of action scene where director Mark Babych excels and the no let-up sequence is mimed in brilliant detail along with Cartwright's mix of drinks orders and hostelry badinage. All around designer Hannah Clarke's assertive rectangular bar where pumps, bottles, glasses and cash (but not, intriguingly, cash-register) are stylishly mimed.

After this the need to keep slipping off for costumes changes for subsequent solo and duo scenes tends to break the action, losing some energy. Best throughout are the two character scenes. There's the bloke alsways on the lookout for new female talent (evident apparently in the audience front-row) whose chat-up line's interrupted when his girlfriend swaggers assertively in. What he loves is the contents of her purse, but when his dancing display crunches into the reality of an aging physique he's forced to commit himself to a long-term relationship, though it's evident his fiancee's going to have to keep her eye on him.

After an unnecessary interval (the Octagon has to think of its own bar takings) such comedy's sharply contrasted by the cowed wife, perching unassertively on a corner stool with her domestic bully of a husband. It's a harrowing scene, finely played, with the bully's instinctive domination of a weaker psychology, snuffing out its momentary rebellion.

A brief scene showing the two pub owners reacting differently to a boy who enters alone (landlady lovingly sympathetic, landlord telling off his dad for letting the lad in the pub) leads to the extended final section, revealing the long-held resentment between the pair. Here, script and perormances come closest to soap-opera formulae. Till then, this strong revival's a fine opening to the two-play plus other events 'Cartwright at the Octagon' season.

Cast:
Emma Atkins, Simeon Truby

Director: Mark Babych
Designer: Hannah Clark
Lighting: Thomas Weir
Sound: Andy Smith

2005-05-16 01:31:10