WOODY ALLEN'S MURDER MYSTERIES To 19 February.
Croydon.
WOODY ALLEN’S MURDER MYSTERIES
adapted by Janey Clarke music by Warren Wills.
Warehouse Theatre To 19 February 2006.
Tue 6.30pm Wed-Sat 8pm Sun 5pm.
Runs 2hr 20min One interval.
TICKETS: 020 8680 4060.
www.warehousetheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 27 December.
Hey – you guys know a better place to be in Croydon right now?
Croydon’s tiny Warehouse Theatre has mixed comedy and crime for several Christmases now. This year they’ve imported early magazine stories from film-maker Woody Allen, Janey Clarke forming them into a stylish entertainment, interspersed by boozy, bluesy music redolent of the forties hardboiled private-eye world Allen here inhabits.
A strong cast fits neatly on the tight Warehouse stage in Charlie Cridlan’s multi-location set, backed by a screen through which part-visible performers play or speak, mirroring this pastiche world of mean streets concealment, aided by Malcolm Rippeth’s lighting. The cast, gifted also at handling Warren Wills’ smokily suitable score, give everything imaginable to the material.
Yet stories don’t always translate onto stage. Most successful are the outer scenes, where Allen transfuses philosophical elements into downtown crime stories. At the end, it’s blokes after broads, not for physical relief but mental stimulation; these guys’ wives really don’t understand them (Allen doesn’t suggest women matched to redneck husbands might seek a cultural stud or two).
But the best is served as openers where Chandler/Bogart style gumshoe Lupowitz is asked to find God as a criminal perp. Out of this Allen spins an intellectual superstructure of motive and possibility subsequent scenes can’t match. A Moll’s soliloquy describing her laid-waste trail of gangster associates is neatly delivered by Karina Fernandez but its single conceit would work better in a reader’s mind.
The story of a cowardly card-player who puts off visiting his dying friend in hospital through fear of infection then stays as far away as possible, till he sees an attractive nurse, has some neat visual moments – Jez Unwin moving his chair away from the bed as he’s told to move it closer. But the story relies on a mix of dialogue plus split narration and silent action that ultimately seems imposed by the source rather than an act of theatrical volition.
Excellent work though from Harry Myers’ uncannily accurate detective, and Lucy Victory’s platinum blonde temptress in that opening winner. Well executed as it all is, amusing when not outright funny, you could find yourself at worse places than downtown Croydon this year.
Lupowitz: Harry Myers.
Lucy: Karina Fernandez.
Mendel: Jez Unwin.
Flo: Kate McCahill.
Inspector Ford: Johnson Willis.
Heather Butkiss: Lucy Victory.
Director: Janey Clarke.
Designer: Charlie Cridlan.
Lighting: Malcolm Rippeth.
Choreographer: Tamsyn Salter.
Costume: Gayle Woodsend.
Fight choreographer: Tim Davenport.
Voice Coach: Richard Ryder.
2006-01-07 01:44:16