WAY UPSTREAM. To 15 November.
Scarborough
WAY UPSTREAM
by Alan Ayckbourn
Stephen Joseph Theatre To 15 November
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat 2.30pm
Audio-described: 13, 2.30pm 15 November
BSL Signed: 14 November
Follow-up 28 October
Runs 3hr One interval
Revival of Ayckbourn's awkward yet intriguing play on home ground (or in home waters) isn't quite definitiveThis is a key work; after the interval a new Ayckbourn emerges. In act one we meet typical 1970s Ayckbourn characters: the miserably married middle-class, splenetic business-man Keith and bored, libidinous wife June, on holiday with Keith's ineffectual business partner Alistair and Emma, who believes in her husband but feels growing dismay at his inertia. Symbolism tinges their hapless boating holiday, heading for Armageddon Bridge, with captain Keith sure he'll have them there and backing a week.
In the second, all ways more substantial, act these people's England is invaded by tough hunk Vince, whose strength clears them of the sandbank, but in getting the country sorry, boat moving he manipulates democracy, takes command from Keith (simultaneously locked-out of his factory by strikers), sadistically exploits June's desire (finally destroying her morale with the truth about herself), and, throwing away the boat-user's manual, gives the boat decks ridiculous new names - about as convincing as monetarism, the economic theory England's new ship-of-state controllers were unleashing.
All this with decadent aristo friend Fleur. Maeve Larkin catches her irresponsibility, and while Stephen Beckett doesn't have the deep menace James Laurenson brought years ago at the National, his sinister Vince switches convincingly between bullying matiness and open threat.
The ever-excellent John Branwell and Fiona Mollison are fine, and Saskia Butler especially moving in moments of rebellion, petering-out when Vince comes up with plausible reasons for his instructions. Butler expresses lingering belief in Alistair by vocal tone and flashes of facial expression - up to the final crisis, when open piracy rips the craft apart.
It's here Ayckbourn's plan goes dodgy. Having kept Matthew Cottle's Alistair on the sidelines sulking ashore then marooned Ayckbourn suddenly demands good men stand-up to evil. Only luck and unconvincing plotting allow right to win, and the decent couple to sail past angry aggression to bursts of English music at Armageddon, in (here) somewhat subdued final triumph.
Both paranoia and romantic resolutions feature in Ayckbourn's subsequent plays. The resolutions don't often convince except in the young people's plays he's been writing since Way Upstream, where fantasy reigns more freely. Here too, the happy ending doesn't convince.
Keith: John Branwell
June: Fiona Mollison
Alistair: Matthew Cottle
Emma: Saskia Butler
Mrs Hatfield: Suzy Aitchison
Vince: Stephen Beckett
Fleur: Maeve Larkin
Director: Alan Ayckbourn
Designer: Michael Holt
Lighting: Mick Hughes
Music: John Pattison
Fight arranger: Christopher Main
2003-10-27 09:21:03