Theatre Review: Woman in Mind (Duke of York's)

Despite the calibre of casts and creatives his work attracts, and the admiration of writers I love including Steves Pemberton and Vineberg, I've yet to see an Alan Ayckbourn production I've even half-liked. (Alain Resnais' magical film of Private Fears in Public Places [2006] is a special case.) Vineberg, who calls Ayckbourn "the wizard of British farce," even went so far as to praise the rotten would-be ghost story Haunting Julia (1994) that was doing the rounds again in 2011; the critic claims that Ayckbourn's "brand of banter ... spins, often hilariously, off the banality of middle-class English conversation."

Banal, yes; hilarious, no. What I've seen of Ayckbourn seems obvious and shallow, and sometimes reliant on staging gimmicks. I'd take any random five minutes of an episode of One Foot in the Grave for more comedy and insight into suburban angst. 

Still, the combination of a director I generally like and an actress I almost always do was enough to get me to a preview of Woman in Mind. Michael Longhurst's Sheridan Smith-starring staging arrives in the West End (prior to a short tour) to mark the 40th anniversary of Ayckbourn's play, which premiered at the Stephen Joseph in 1985. Subsequent US productions have featured Stockard Channing and Helen Mirren in the lead role of Susan; Julie McKenzie and Janie Dee have previously done it in London, and, most recently, Jenna Russell at Chichester. 

It's not hard to see the draw of the role. Woman in Mind (the playwright's 32nd offering; he's now up to his 92nd) offers an externalised vision of a psychological state. Susan is a vicar's wife unhappy (natch) with her now sexless marriage, and semi-estranged from her much-loved son. She's taken refuge in fantasy - conjuring a more glamorous, appreciative brood with whom she interacts. Essentially the play dramatises maladaptive daydreaming, and we meet Susan as her parallel "existences" start to collide in more obtrusive ways.  Yet Ayckbourn is less interested in making a case study than in depicting a kind of existential crisis of a neglected woman losing her sense of identity and usefulness, and sensing time running out. 

For its first half, it looks like Longhurst's production will really make the play work. Soutra Gilmore's floral-heavy design - including a safety curtain with the words "Safety Curtain" still blazoned across it - and Lee Curran's lighting design give the proceedings a pop-up vividness over a particular sense of time or place. That the evening won't be the subtlest is signalled by the (fun but questionable) playlist of pre-performance and interval songs, which features just about every track ever recorded with "crazy" in its title. 

As Susan's interactions with the bumbling, eager-to-please Dr. Bill (a surprisingly effective Romesh Ranganathan), with her distracted spouse Gerald (Tim McMullan, good value as always), and her terminally dull sister-in-law Muriel (Louise Brealey) converge with her chats with her more exciting and attentive fantasy family - stylish spouse Andy (Sule Rimi), ebullient daughter Lucy (Safia Oakley-Green) and dynamic brother Tony (Chris Jenks) - the tone is quite fresh and funny. (There was also a memorable meta-incident at the performance I attended, in which Smith momentarily broke character and got the giggles at the sound of a sole strangulated laugh from an audience member). Longhurst keeps the transitions between real and imagined life fleet and unfussy - when the safety curtain rises, it's to reveal the wild grasses of Susan's consciousness, from which her fantasy family start to emerge.

From there it seems like the play will get in to deeper areas, especially with the arrival of Susan's son Rick (Taylor Uttley), but the second half degenerates and ultimately the play goes nowhere interesting. What makes the production worth seeing is Smith's commitment; she has such openness and humanity as a performer that she makes even the weakest moments count. She finds all kinds of variety in Susan: vulnerability, insecurity, warmth, cutting wit and cruelty (the relish in her takedowns of Muriel is priceless), confident sultriness.  

The show marks Smith's return to the West End after the unloved Opening Night musical and, while some might want to present it as such, Woman in Mind is no comparable disaster. Unlike van Hove, Longhurst isn't a director who leaves common sense behind (in fact, a wilder approach might have helped here in the later stages, in which an attempt at frenetic surrealism mostly comes across as feeble). Woman in Mind finally squanders its interesting ideas but, for all its shortcomings, it's still the most enjoyable experience I've had at an Ayckbourn play so far. 

Woman in Mind is booking at the Duke of York's until 28 February and then tours to Sunderland and Glasgow. Further information here. 

Production photos: Marc Brenner.

Theatre Review: Relatively Speaking (Richmond Theatre, & touring)

2012 has certainly turned into something of an impromptu Alan Ayckbourn fest in British Theatreland. Ayckbourn’s seventy-fifth play Neighbourhood Watch toured earlier this year before pitching up at London’s Tricycle; Jeremy Herrin’s production of Absent Friends appeared in February at the Harold Pinter Theatre and that theatre is now playing host to Trevor Nunn’s just-opened revival of A Chorus of Disapproval. Meanwhile, Ayckbourn’s attempt at a ghost story, 1994’s Haunting Julia, is touring again, and it’s now joined on the circuit by Lindsay Posner’s production of Relatively Speaking— Ayckbourn’s 1967 comedy and first West End success—produced by Theatre Royal Bath Productions. None of these outings has done much to win over those unconvinced by Ayckbourn’s status as a major British dramatist. And, alas, Posner’s forced and charmless production proves to be perhaps the weakest yet.

The plot centres on a series of—allegedly hilarious—farcical misunderstandings. Ginny (Kara Tointon) informs her boyfriend Greg (Max Bennett) - who’s just proposed to her—that she’s going to visit her parents in Buckinghamshire, and that she doesn’t want Greg to accompany her on the trip. Greg, however, decides to follow her there, with the intention of asking her parents’ permission to marry her, and pitches up at the house of Sheila (Felicity Kendal) and Philip (Jonathan Coy) before Ginny arrives. It turns out, though, that the couple aren’t Ginny’s parents at all, but that Philip is actually Ginny’s lover, whom she’s attempting to rid herself of.

As with much of Ayckbourn’s work, it’s tempting to call Relatively Speaking “sitcom-esque.” But to do so seems a slight on even the most inept sitcom. The play’s premise is paltry, without an ounce of the credibility that even the broadest situation comedy requires, and Ayckbourn’s development of it never builds up a head of steam.

In the programme essay, Al Senter valiantly attempts to make a case for the play as capturing its historical moment and reflecting “the profound changes that were convulsing British society during the 1960s.” But, despite a smidgeon of male nudity and a suggestion of pre-marital sex in the (deathly) opening scene, this kind of social awareness simply isn’t in the text. Indeed, it seems almost inconceivable that, while Relatively Speaking was enjoying its first West End run, Joe Orton was penning his biting satires and Simon Gray’s razor-sharp Butley (itself so beautifully revived by Posner last year) was only a couple of years away.

This could be forgiven, of course, if the play offered some genuinely witty lines and exchanges. But Ayckbourn’s trite, rhythm-less dialogue continually lets you down. Primed to laugh, the audience latches—sometimes maniacally—onto any opportunity, no matter how meagre, with the result that a line as innocuous as “Shall we play bridge?” is greeted by gales of overzealous guffaws by the end.

The characterisation is so insipid that the actors are up against it from the start. Tointon tends to read her lines flatly, with the same intonations, while Kendal flaps around in a vain attempt to make Sheila’s ditziness endearing. There’s a moment close to the end when it seems that Ayckbourn is going to give this character a chance to show some real spark and awareness, but the opportunity is quickly sacrificed. Bennett has some effective moments and Coy delivers the crispest performance. But overall this is a weak production of a  terminally bland play.

Reviewed for British Theatre Guide.

Theatre Review: Haunting Julia (Riverside Studios)

Inspired initially by Stephen Mallatratt’s phenomenally successful stage adaptation of The Woman in Black, Alan Ayckbourn’s ghost story Haunting Julia premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in 1994, where it has subsequently been performed on two other occasions (in 1999 and 2008). The play has now been revived by Andrew Hall for the Lichfield Garrick and is currently at Riverside Studios, Hammersmith. Haunting Julia is recognised as a departure from Ayckbourn’s signature style of social comedy, and this production arrives with reports that audience members at the Garrick have been collapsing and fainting from shock due to the intensity of the piece. Such reports are rather surprising, for what the play looks like here is simply a mildly diverting trifle on supernatural themes that never really generates enough tension or suspense.

Dubbed “Little Miss Mozart” by the media, the Julia of the title was a musical prodigy who committed suicide 12 years before the events of the play. Her father Bob has turned the student residence where she lived into a shrine-cum-heritage-museum, as part of the Julia Lukin Music Centre. Still convinced that there are unanswered questions about his daughter’s death, and having come to believe that her ghost is haunting the Centre, Bob has invited Andy, Julia’s former boyfriend, to the venue. Here he confronts him with a psychic, Ken, who he believes can provide the answers he requires. The drama focuses on the interactions of the three men, and the different ways in which they are haunted by Julia’s presence.

It’s an intriguing enough set-up, but one that doesn’t develop as successfully as you might hope. Ultimately, though, the fault isn’t so much with Hall’s production, which is efficient in all departments and very well-acted, as with the play itself, which is weak and sometimes painfully contrived. The plotting lacks urgency and the big themes which the piece engages with - grief, parental possessiveness, the challenges of genius - are more interesting than anything Ayckbourn does with them. The playwright seems unable to work up the requisite sense of suggestiveness or mystery here, and his continual recourse to comedy dissipates the tension - though look out for a rather neat gag involving a teddy bear called Emily. In addition, despite some decent effects, an attempt at a grand, melodramatic, emotional climax falls flat. The piece suffers, finally, from Ayckbourn’s tendency to bland things out, so that what we are left with offers neither the fun of a trashy ghost story nor the lingering resonance of an effective psychological thriller.

The production’s greatest asset is its three performances. As the bluff Yorkshireman Joe, Christopher Timothy is expert as he slowly reveals the extent of the character’s possessiveness. Dominic Hecht brings some distinctive touches to the familiar role of the sceptic, and Richard O’Callaghan is simply delightful as Ken. The actors play off each other with consummate skill and ease, holding the attention even when Ayckbourn’s dialogue is at its most pedestrian and exposition-heavy. The performers are the best reason to see the production, and are responsible for the modicum of interest that Haunting Julia manages to sustain. But those expecting a truly terrifying experience here are likely to feel short-changed.

 

Reviewed for The Public Reviews.

The production runs for 2 hours 10 mins and is booking until 3 July. Further information here.