You’ve got to feel a little sorry for Eugene Ionesco. When, in the fifties, heralding the beginning of the Theatre of the Absurd, his masterwork The Bald Prima Donna came out, it was a gesture of defiance, a solid two fingers up to perceived Englishness and to narrow theatrical strictures.

Flip forward nowadays, and the play is firmly ensconced in theatrical timetables and the establishment. Post-modernism has rendered absurdist comedy an everyday phenomenon, and the biting social satire has dated, the Englishness of its protagonists bordering on the extinct, existing only in the echelons of the very rich, the very boring and The Last of the Summer Wine. The howling theatrical great dane of yesteryear has had its bollocks well and truly trimmed.

A shame that part of Ionesco’s edifice is so trapped in time, especially since the play is so brilliantly conceived and written. Still, what remains is a competent and worthy enough piece (given that segments of the satire, such as the endless problem of communication, are universal) which pulls off its moments of humour with brio and panache.
The cast here needs to be strong, and they are indeed, without exception, fabulous. The four main characters achieve the consistent and high level of extravagance required, always twisting back into standard elasticated grotesques whenever they are not immediately occupied. Chip Horne’s face manages to achieve the not inconsiderable feat of looking like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a milk float. (That’s a very good thing, by the way.)

Mark Lowen’s direction matches up to this standard, spinning the verbal and physical interplay between the characters beautifully, letting the full measure of Ionesco’s piece emerge, spewing repetitive nonsense until it achieves its own level of sense and coherence, joyfully pulsing to the beat of its own crazy rhythm. Still, an excellent production and well worth seeing. Just such a shame bits of the play have dated.

Munzar Sharif, 07.05.03