WOMAN IN MIND. To 4 October.

Scarborough.

WOMAN IN MIND
by Alan Ayckbourn.

Stephen Joseph Theatre (The Round) To 4 October 2008.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat 25, 27 Sept, 2, 4 Oct 2.30pm.
Runs 2hr 30min One interval.

TICKETS: 01723 370541.
www.sjt.uk.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 20 September.

Intriguing Ayckbourn turning-point revived with the performance it deserves.
So now we know. The playwright whose words have spun millions of laughs and thousands of chills has decided to leave his artistic directorship not with a bang but a whimper: a fuzz of language and a woman’s life flickering out. No other male playwright has spoken so convincingly for middle-class English women, and this 1985 play, in which a vicar’s wife emerges from concussion to imagine an alternative imaginary family whose ideal, champagne existence contrasts humdrum life before turning sour as her mind increasingly erodes, is a turning-point in Ayckbourn’s writing.

Susan’s husband Gerald (in John Branwell a cleric of portly self-importance and utter insignificance whose apparent consideration has an undertone of patronising bullying which quietly gnaws at his wife’s confidence) and his ever-critical sister Muriel, a confident yet appalling cook, hark back to 1970s social comedy Ayckbourn, particularly 1976’s dark comedy of wifely oppression Just Between Ourselves.

Yet the exploration of madness, apparently induced by an accident, but emanating from pressures within the family, is a largely new strand, with the playwright taking on darker, wider themes. The 1976 comedy had ended with a downbeat scene of nervous breakdown, but without entering the inner experience.

Here the distorted language framing the play, the case of the dog that might, or might not, be barking, and the white-clad family who seem such an escape from the humdrum till they turn into threats led by a red-clad devil-figure, lead towards the time-travel, sinister criminals and androids which have increasingly occupied Ayckbourn’s later dramatic world.

The humanised android that whirled and gestured robotically in 1998’s Comic Potential was created by Janie Dee, who returns here as the performer the character of Susan has been waiting for. Initially trying to cope, her sociably smiling mouth denied by the frowning reason of her forehead at her real family’s behaviour, becoming near-feral in manner as the initially ideal characters’ aggression becomes physical, lying abandoned under attack or near-snarling like the unseen dog, it’s a vital central performance, intelligent and physically daring, surrounded by fine work from all others onstage in Ayckbourn’s own exemplary production.

Susan: Janie Dee.
Bill: Paul Kemp.
Gerald: John Branwell.
Muriel: Joanna David.
Rick: Dominic Hecht.
Andy: Bill Champion.
Tony: Martin Parr.
Lucy: Perdita Avery.

Director: Alan Ayckbourn.
Designer: Roger Glossop.
Lighting: Mick Hughes.
Costume: Jennie Boyer.

2008-09-24 09:02:04