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Animal
Crackers features many a 'strange interlude', and not nearly enough
mention of pineapples. This is only disconcerting because Animal Crackers
is
itself one long, strange interlude, oozing with latent anarchism and
sustained (comic) juice - a Tristram Shandy of the stage in which
the
diversions are the plot, the plot gloriously irrelevant and the irrelevance
fantastically diverting. Sod Oscar Wilde, if only for one night: great
comedy is physical, literal and romping (dreaded word) if it is anything,
and this - the play of the film of George Kaufman's 1920s script,
with extra
Marx impro and sketches attached - has comic greatness in superabundance.
Those
unfamiliar with the complete works of Marx can have no decent excuse
for their ignorance; those with some awareness, however vague, can
have
nothing to gripe of in James Wilton's possessed, cigar-fuelled Groucho.
Aping a universally-known comic deity is at best a traumatic task,
as Jim
Carrey found when Being Andy Kaufman in 1999 Milos Forman biopic Man
on the
Moon. In Groucho's case the exertion is exhausting, and this particular
reincarnation is everything it ought to be: manic and nonchalant in
equal
measure, requisitely absurd but ruthlessly dominating both script
and
partners, irresistible in all the right twitches - the leer with a
life of
its own, the flutter of the caterpillar eyebrows, a stare so blank
it simply
glows with potential. Add to those a superior voice and real flair
for the
(occasionally ropey) accompaniment and the necessary ingredients are
all
there, though the support necessarily falls short on occasion - some
repartee too slow, fragments of spontaneity contrived. Andy King as
Harpo's
mute Professor sports a sinisterly endearing stage presence, John
Parker
(Tom Wood) a beautiful shuffling diffidence, Hives the Butler awe-inspiring
intonation, to name but three.
Most
of the cast do the shrewd choreography full justice, and keep the
withering social comment - on New York society, colonialism, marriage,
freedom of the press, pineapples &c. - unobtrusive. Josie Long
and James
Harris, born stand-ups both and outside the action as Jewish picturehouse
owner and usherette, are in a class of their own. I was called a dirty
Commie bastard by the manager and asked to leave, rightly so, since
I
arrived clutching a large red copy of Marx (Karl). It's a rare sideshow
that
steals the limelight; Animal Crackers can richly afford it, since
its comic
meat is so beguilingly competent.
Tom
Hill
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