February 27, 2009
Alan Ayckbourn has written over 70 plays in a career that seems to be as long almost as that of old Methuselah himself, and I thought it quite odd that producer and director settled on these 5 thematically-linked snippets from that vast choice. The playwright may indeed may be a 'comic genius' in the cliched phrase, but genius-seekers would be hard put to it to strike gold here.
These enactments of the loneliness and desperation and hermetic lives of the characters skewered here for our inspection were short at 20 to 30 minutes per head, but even so there were longueurs, especially after the interval in the village fete tent and finally on the park benches. There were surprisingly few laughs to be had in the auditorium all evening, a revealing thing when I had the impression that many of the student audience were acquainted with one or more of the actors, and so goodwill abounded. Nor were the pieces sufficiently developed in the time that Ayckbourn permits himself to aspire to any meaningful tragi-comedy.
The production was workmanlike, but the chief pleasure was in the acting. All 5 players were excellent, with the single exception of the village fete where the master of ceremonies and the scoutmaster went over the top into burlesque, and all proved themselves superior to their material, no mean feat for student actors. Their showing made the choice of material even more surprising.
These enactments of the loneliness and desperation and hermetic lives of the characters skewered here for our inspection were short at 20 to 30 minutes per head, but even so there were longueurs, especially after the interval in the village fete tent and finally on the park benches. There were surprisingly few laughs to be had in the auditorium all evening, a revealing thing when I had the impression that many of the student audience were acquainted with one or more of the actors, and so goodwill abounded. Nor were the pieces sufficiently developed in the time that Ayckbourn permits himself to aspire to any meaningful tragi-comedy.
The production was workmanlike, but the chief pleasure was in the acting. All 5 players were excellent, with the single exception of the village fete where the master of ceremonies and the scoutmaster went over the top into burlesque, and all proved themselves superior to their material, no mean feat for student actors. Their showing made the choice of material even more surprising.