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Bill Kenwright presents
David Bamber (Sidney) and Jane Horrocks (Jane) by Alan Ayckbourn Director: Alan Strachan Garrick Theatre Dec. 11, 2007 – Mar 22, 2008
b A review by Mary Couzens for EXTRA! EXTRA!
Alan Ayckbourn’s belief that comedy doesn’t always have to be funny is personified in his twelfth play, (out of 70), Absurd Person Singular, (1972) set in the early seventies, a piece of theatre that clearly, turns a mirror onto its audience and does not always guarantee laughs in the process, though there is plenty of recognition of the pathos beneath the smiles of his characters. Much of the laughter stems from their vain attempts to mask their life’s disappointments beneath wreaths of joviality. The evening we were in attendance, it seemed that as though the laughter in the theatre could have been divided amongst two distinct categories: the rather nervous, or the somewhat sadistic, reflecting, in turn, on those exorcising and/or, exercising it. This revival marks the first staging of an Ayckbourn plays in the West End since the playwright put a moratorium on further productions there in 2003, following largely unfavourable reception of his, in my considered opinion, classic, underappreciated trio of bitingly funny, socially aware plays, entitled Damsels in Distress.
This three act play, each section of which takes place on a Christmas Eve, seems to echo the structure of Dickens’ timeless story, A Christmas Carol, with its three ghostly visitors - Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come, with Ackbourn’s first act being set ‘Last Christmas,’ Act II ‘This Christmas,’ and Act III taking place ‘Next Christmas.’ However, in contrast to Dickens moral tale, which features a rosily happy ending with reformations and healings all round, Ackbourn’s decidedly darker seasonal fare shows his audience a half dozen metaphoric characters, most of who are even more resigned to their stagnant lifestyles at the end of his play than they were at the outset. Each of the play’s three acts are set, in turn, in one of the three couples’ kitchens.
Jane Horrock’s opens the proceedings as clean-aholic housewife Jane Hopcroft, whose thoroughness her condescending husband, Sidney, (David Bamber), professes, would be an asset to the Royal Navy. When he claims that none of their impending Christmas Eve guests will even be coming into the kitchen, Jane nervously counters with, ‘Somebody might…all women love kitchens,’ an assumption which, speaks reams about her character. Bamber, the chameleon like actor whom Austen fans will remember as ‘Mr. Collins’, the self-righteous preacher who wanted to marry Lizzie in the BBC’s seminal version of Pride and Prejudice, featuring Colin Firth’s memorable wet shirt scenes, amuses further in this outing, morphing as he does from a working man who humbles himself for the approval of his ‘betters’ to kicking up his heels because his ship’s coming in. Inevitably, the first guests to arrive are the most annoying, Dick and Lottie Potter, but as this play marks Ayckbourn’s first theatrical foray into the possibilities of ‘offstage action,’ a device he would continue to experiment with throughout his career, we hear, but never see the irritating couple, though it’s amazing how adept one’s mind can be at filling in gaps! When Ayckbourn was mid-way through the writing of the play, he decided to transfer the action from the three couples’ living rooms into their kitchens, in order to further explore the possibilities of offstage action. This play also marks the first time the playwright juxtaposed ‘light and dark themes’ to borrow his own phrasing, side by side, a technique which was to become something of a trademark of Ayckbourn plays to come. As is the case in many, if not all of his plays, in Absurd Person Singular, the class system is laid bare on the table, ready for carving, with characters ranging from working class, through middle and upper, including those thinking themselves higher class!
Lia Williams makes a clumsily splashy entrance into the kitchen as friend Geoffrey’s pill-popping, erratic wife, Eva, whose on the cusp of middle age, fledgling architect spouse persistently plays the field, despite the fact that’s he’s a married man. John Gordon Sinclair personifies the self-important womaniser, oozing justifications with every utterance. His architectural career would take off if only he could secure that big shopping centre deal. The ‘star’ guests of the evening are, however, Sidney’s banker Ronald Brewster-Wright and his wife Marion, whom, one assumes, might do his career ‘some good.’ David Horovitch, as Ronald, appears to go along with whatever his well-heeled wife, Marion (Jenny Seagrove) says, but confesses, in the kitchen, on the quiet to Geoffrey that he’s never ‘understood what women think,’ though she is his second wife. As Marion, Seagrove appears to be in her element, placating those she perceives as common, whilst fishing for compliments from skirt-chasing Geoffrey. Marion likes a drink, or two, or three, in fact a new bottle of gin seems to be her favourite Christmas gift.
The revolving action of this three act play warrants two intervals, while the scenery, designed by Michael Pavelka, is changed from the Hopworth’s large, new-look kitchen, to the sinking architect’s middle-class wood panelled home, with its piles of dirty laundry and wadded paper strewn about the floor, with Eva at her kitchen table writing potential suicide notes. Most of this act centres on her rather clumsy attempts to top herself, much to the ignorance of her self-absorbed, well-meaning guests, who, continually, inadvertently thwart her efforts. These scenes were, understandably, met with scattered, nervous laughter, as they are not what one usually expects to see in a farce; only a master humorist like Alan Ayckbourn could take such an overridingly gloomy scenario and attempt to make it seem comical. Though, one wonders whether the scenario is actually meant to be humorous, or even, whether the playwright finds it funny himself.
Act III finds us in the vicarage-like kitchen of Ronald and Marion’s mansion, which appears to be as cold as a tomb, as the master of the house sits in the antique laden, stained glass windowed room in his wool coat before a small, wood-burning stove. Marion has, apparently, taken up companionship with the bottle in her own room upstairs, while Eva waits on her, and Geoffrey laments the disintegration of his architectural career. In his reduced state, he is dependent on the wife he has formerly spurned. Like Dickens, Ayckbourn’s table-turning observational powers are, dangerously accurate in terms of the foibles of human nature that man (and woman) is heir to.
The ‘guilty’ laughter this play inspires is part and parcel of most of Ayckbourn’s later work, with many theatrical dons noting of late that the archetypal, unrelentingly ambitious social climbers Sidney and Jane adeptly foreshadowed the upcoming Thatcher era with its encouragement of unmitigated self interest. At the end of the play, the scrabble letters adorning the curtain spelling the play’s title were inverted, mimicking the way we would see them if we held them up to a mirror.
Garrick Theatre Theatre Booking Number: 0870 890 1104 Address: Charing Cross Road, London, WC2H 0HH Mon-Sat 19:45, Wed & Sat 15:00 Prices: £15-£45
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