VACUUM. To 14 October.

Tour

VACUUM
by Deborah McAndrew

Northern Broadsides Tour to 14 October 2006
Runs 1hr 25min No interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 28 September at Bridge House Theatre Warwick

Hardly sweeps up enough interest for an evening out.
Something of a departure here for a company which has spent 15 years tramping the country with an aesthetic that they’ll tell you stretches far beyond flat vowels, but certainly involves bold, large-scale approaches to classic drama. True in the case of their Blake Morrison adaptations, like the current Man With Two Gaffers, there’s almost a new play alongside a classic adaptation. And there have been a few smaller-scale Broadsides pieces, often involving another Yorkshire poet, Tony Harrison.

But Vacuum is the closest to a realistic piece they’ve presented. As well-read audience members at Warwick pointed out the situation has similarities with Edward Albee’s late-1950s one-acter Zoo Story, while the plot idea has been used in the world of the games-playing, post-Sleuth thriller.

All of which leaves frequent Broadsider Deborah McAndrew’s play in something of a - well – vacuum. As a character study, whether of prize-winning insurance salesman Ray who calls on a dusty old vacuum repair-shop owner at the end of the day, or of the young owner Ashburger himself, there’s less than 85 minutes of character development. Yet for a plot-driven piece events hang around too much, creating only mild interest and minimal tension, while the surprise ending is too pat and summarily-handled to form a satisfying climax.

And the piece contains several musical ‘interruptions’, in which the down-to-earth Ashburger reveals a taste for signing in German, and the 2 engage in a dance. Whatever the intention, there’s too little involvement with the characters to raise any interest in why they’re doing this, while it makes the narrative chug more fitfully along.

Conrad Wilson’s direction clearly doesn’t see any of this as problematic. No blame to either actor, Michael Hugo giving Ashburger a suitably distanced feel, while Mark Stratton’s increasingly impatient salesman retains technical confidence even when moving into vocal stage-anger mode.

A gun’s produced and the trigger eventually pressed, though not in the direction most will have expected. The trouble is, though the dialogue is well-enough written, its desultory development means that, when the bullet’s finally fired, it hardly seems to matter.

Ray: Mark Stratton
Mr Ashburger: Michael Hugo

Director/Composer: Conrad Nelson
Designer: Lis Evans
Lighting: Antony Wilcock

2006-10-03 17:50:46