"Marco
Plays the Blues" is a double bill of comedy. The first play is "Marco's"
by Chip Horne, and is set in a restaurant, where Harriet and three of
her friends meet, and two silent actors in the background share a meal,
with some very convincing miming of eating. It's a little difficult for
me to tell you where the comedy comes in without giving away a certain
element of surprise, rather like telling you the twist in a film such
as "The Sixth Sense", though the twist here is easy to see through
because the acting of it is a little two wide eyed and loud. I laughed,
but it could have been played to greater effect. One thing to note was
that there were some good comedy faces amongst the cast: the prompt, Kristopher
Newlands, had a very straight deadpan, uncertain face, which lit up with
a coy blush when he noticed the audience. The comedy wound up to absurdity,
but a very logical absurdity, following a strangely reasonable path (along
the lines of something such as Monty Python) - and that's what makes it
funny.
"The
Blues" by James Harris, the second play on the bill, is also fairly
absurd. I spent most of this short feeling lost, as though the words were
being spoken with an accent so strong that it was almost unintelligible.
The action takes place in a bar, where a strange group of people are waiting
for "the Major" to arrive. The style of these players was much
more actorly than those in "Marco's", and they spoke with an
almost Shakespearean lilt. The words stopped and started and wound around
themselves so that common phrases changed their meanings with the loss
or addition of just one word, or forced themselves to be taken literally.
This itself might have been intrinsically funny, regardless of plot, if
it wasn't for the fact that the words were spoken so that I couldn't even
hear the unexpected. The whole thing seemed muffled.
People's
facial expressions again, though, were very good, almost caricature-like.
Clayton, played by Thomas Richards, seemed to have a sloping head and
still, staring eyes. He was the straightman, always motionless. He fell
from the bar a number of times, with no apparent pain and the same rigidity.
The Bartender, Richard Power, was all philosophical bonhomie and seemed
able to turn, bounce and spin as though he had elastic in his shoes, or
was a circus acrobat. I particularly liked (and who wouldn't) the blues-man,
Steven-John Holgate, who sat in a corner of the stage and only moved once.
That's a nice simple joke.
The bartender
said one thing that stuck with me, along the lines of "A man walks
into a bar; isn't there more to say". If there had been, it would
probably have been amusing to hear it.
Cecily
Crampin, 12.11.02
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