Theatre Review: Seven Year Twitch (Orange Tree)

Simon Mattacks and Johanna Tincey in Seven Year Twitch (Photo: Robert Day)

Tweet tweet. If Woody Allen, Alan Ayckbourn and Mike Leigh joined forces to guest-write an episode of HBO’s In Treatment then it’s possible that the end result might be something like Seven Year Twitch, the lamely named but rather enjoyable new comedy from writer/director David Lewis, which has just opened at the Orange Tree. Like Lewis’s last play, the excellent How to be Happy, Seven Year Twitch is another relationship roundelay of marital discord, this time filtered through two key elements: psychotherapy and -yup - bird-watching. It’s a “shrink-rapt” comedy, you might say: sometimes sketchy and undeveloped, not entirely satisfying in the end, yet full of funny moments and engagingly tart exchanges scene by scene.

The plot concerns two therapists – colleagues and former paramours – and their intricately interconnected clientele. In the first scene, Megan (Lucy Tregear) is counselling the nervy Ben (Paul O’Mahony), a charity worker, who, following a confession of impotence, recounts an embarrassing incident at a dinner party hosted by Fran (Amanda Royle). The focus then shifts to Fran during a session with her analyst Charlie (Paul Kemp), in which she bemoans the obsessive tendencies of her competitive “twitcher” spouse Terry (Simon Mattacks) who’d missed said dinner party due to an impromptu bird-watching expedition. Dissatisfied with his profession these days, Charlie’s own marriage to Karen (Kate Miles) is also going through a sticky patch, wouldn’t you know. Karen is lusted after by Megan, who, at Charlie’s behest, ends up taking on Terry as a patient. Terry then falls for a fellow twitcher, Jill (Johanna Tincey). Further complications ensue.

Seven Year Twitch plays as an ever-escalating relay of comic high anxiety, in which the characters go through so many surprise shifts in erotic attachment that they could be auditioning for an appearance in an Iris Murdoch novel. Punchier and more profane than Ayckbourn, Lewis is great at depicting moments of social awkwardness. And - as the writer of a play about Feydeau - he doesn’t fear pushing the action into full-blown farce either – notably in a terrific sequence that finds Terry sheltering in a chair-hide in the living room while his randy wife enjoys herself in front of him with a new lover on the floor.

Yet Lewis’s production delivers moments of repose and reflection too; these rub up nicely against the broader episodes and mitigate the more contrived and schematic aspects of the plotting. (As in How to be Happy, a character’s classical music fixation once again helps to supply a melancholy undertow, and here allows for an understated, but very beautiful, close to the first half.) While there’s nothing very novel about the play’s notion that shrinks are every bit as screwed up as their clients, Seven Year Twitch is nonetheless at its sharpest on patient/therapist dynamics and the diverse contours of such relationships, which we see shifting, variously, from cool professionalism to irritation by way of sympathetic interest and even tenderness.



Paul O'Mahony in Seven Year Twitch (Photo: Robert Day)



The incidents described by the patients slide fluidly into flashbacks, with the same events sometimes shown from contrasting perspectives. But fortunately the play doesn’t get stuck on a tedious Intimate Exchanges/Constellations-style track of endless variations. Nor does it offer the obvious satirical stance on therapy that you might anticipate. Rather, the various theories that Megan and Charlie proffer regarding their clients’ behaviour can sound equal parts convincing and glib. Lewis allows the audience to make up its own mind on that score, and once again gives each of his protagonists a measure of awareness and self-delusion. Analogies between birdy and human behaviour crop up, but the playwright ensures that these aren’t hammered home in the way that the corny title suggests that they might be; there’s not even a shag gag to be heard.

The play’s structure means that we get told an awful lot about the characters, some of which isn’t exactly demonstrated by what we see. But perhaps this disjuncture is part of the point. After all, Seven Year Twitch is mostly concerned with the misunderstandings that occur within relationships, with faulty perception of others, and how gestures and actions can be misinterpreted. That’s the source of the play’s sadness - and also of its comedy. (One thing comes through clearly, though: however well intentioned, it’s probably never a good idea to present your wife with a dead bird - rare or not - as a peace-offering.)



Amanda Royle in Seven Year Twitch (Photo: Robert Day)



If there’s a problem here it’s that Lewis throws a few too many elements into the mix and struggles to juggle them, with the result that the play doesn’t snap together as satisfyingly as How to be Happy did. Too many traumas end up getting tossed around - abortions, alcoholic and absent parents, dead infants and a heap of Daddy issues - and some of the musings fail to convince. Charlie’s ranty theory on gender roles sounds rehearsed, while Fran’s tirade against consumerism (though better made) might have been drawn directly from Lewis’s previous play. And though all of the actors deliver sharp, well-defined performances - with especially fine work from Tregear and Royle (the latter a dead ringer for Lesley Manville here) - a couple of characters go to waste, feeling less fully integrated into the plot than they might have been.

Despite these shortcomings, there’s much to enjoy in Seven Year Twitch and much to admire about Lewis’s writing, in particular the way it doesn’t take the obvious route: the play spends a lot of time seeming to edge two of its characters towards each other, for example, and then completely subverts that expectation at the end. Relationships in Lewisland are incomplete, messy, frustrating affairs, resisting closure and final “analysis.” Still, for all the cynicism about human interaction that’s expressed, Lewis manages to end the play on a moment of possibility and openness, with the potential beginning of something. Two people face each other in a room once again. One encourages the other into intimacy with two simple, precious yet also deadly words: “I’m listening.”

The production runs until 22 June.

Theatre Review: Evita (touring)

My review of the new touring revival of Evita is up at British Theatre Guide. You can read it here.

 

 

Theatre Review: The Hothouse (Trafalgar Studios)

My review of Jamie Lloyd's production of Harold Pinter's The Hothouse is up at The Public Reviews. You can read it here.

Theatre Review: Larisa and the Merchants (Arcola)

Alexander Ostrovsky's 1878 play Without A Dowry receives a very belated – but extremely welcome – British premiere in Samuel Adamson's Larisa and the Merchants at Arcola Studio 2. It can surely only be historical accident that's kept Ostrovsky's play off of British stages for so long, for Adamson's new version, directed with confidence and considerable style by Jacqui Honness-Martin, makes a thoroughly convincing case for the piece as an acerbic yet humane exploration of gender, class and economics in late-nineteenth century Russia, one that Honness-Martin's production – which will play alongside Helena Kaut-Howson's new version of Platonov in Studio 1 – invests with the bite, drive and poignancy of a folktale.   

A connecting thread between the diverse authors whose work Adamson has been inspired to adapt over the years (Schnitzler, Ibsen, Almodóvar, Chekhov, Capote) has been a focus on complex, wilful heroines, and Larisa and the Merchants continues the trend. The action unfolds in a trading town on the Volga River, one inhabited by wealthy merchants and gypsy families. Larisa is a poor girl whose mother, Mrs. Ogudalova, is keen to make her a prosperous match. Our heroine has drawn the attention of the merchants, who view her as just another commodity of sorts, but she's about to marry one Yulii Karandyshev, a pretentious man who's dismissed by the merchants as "a flea-bitten government official from the sticks". It transpires that Larisa has made this match mostly as a practical way of getting over her true love, the aristocrat Sergei Paratov, who cruelly abandoned her years before. But Larisa hasn't counted on Paratov's return, or his reaction to the news that she's to marry.

 

The quandary that results for Larisa – a life of provincial dullness versus the danger and excitement represented by a former paramour – might remind you somewhat of Ellida's dilemma in Ibsen's The Lady from the Sea. But Ostrovsky's interests are rather different, and so is the direction in which the drama develops. Focusing on the way in which money matters in interpersonal relationships, the play is deeply concerned with this society's tendency towards commodification, and Adamson incisively shapes the scenes as a series of deal-making, bargain-striking, bartering episodes.

 

The play's very particular social context takes some working out, and the dialogue initially seems a tad exposition-heavy. But Honness-Martin's production, presented in traverse, boasts an expressionist dash that mitigates this tendency. Music – in the form of gypsy-folk song and dance – is central to the evening and proves a distinctive, exhilarating addition. In a wonderful opening, Jennifer Kidd's glowing Larisa arrives on stage as though pursued by a posse of stomping, singing figures: it's an image that will resonate throughout the evening, as our heroine finds herself at the mercy of characters who – often very ruthlessly – seek to control her fate. Later, in a piercingly beautiful interlude, Larisa sings a folk lament that expresses her disillusionment about the corruption of love. 

Kidd's radiant, candid performance – which shows how Larisa's distaste for her mother's machinations has turned her into a compulsive truth-teller, but one still destructively subject to the gusts of passion – is the centrepiece of this production. But Adamson's very witty, robust writing allows all of the cast plentiful opportunities to develop memorable characters. Ben Addis, bespectacled and sporting ill-fitting trousers, is aces as Yulii, a seemingly genial figure who gradually reveals his preening, possessive tendencies. Annabel Leventon plays the on-the-make mother with a delicious dash of Mike Leigh-esque caricature; she's especially wonderful when informing Larisa that "one advantage of living in the middle of nowhere is that even your husband will seem interesting".

Sam Phillips makes a striking impression as Paratov: hypocritical and ruthless, yet the kind of polished seducer that every audience member might just feel tempted to run away with. Morgan Philpott is marvellous as the play's most original character: a soak of an actor picked up by Paratov on a desert island (!). And Tarek Merchant as an effusive coffee-shop owner, and Dale Rapley and Jack Wilkinson as the merchants, also provide vivid textures.    

 

A loosely contemporary sensibility is evident throughout, in Signe Beckmann's design and in Adamson's dialogue. This sometimes results in anachronism, but also allows the proceedings to skirt period fustiness. Brisk but not hurried, Honness-Martin's beautiful production is attuned to the play's quick movements in mood, as the tone shifts from social satire to melodrama before taking a final tragic turn, adding up to a richly entertaining evening. It's good to hear that Told By An Idiot is staging Too Clever By Half, in an adaptation by Rodney Ackland, this summer at Manchester's Royal Exchange. Perhaps Ostrovsky's moment, on UK stages at least, has finally come.  

 

Theatre Review: The Rocky Horror Show (40th Anniversary Tour)

Don't dream it, see it: my review of The Rocky Horror Show's 40th Anniversary tour is up at British Theatre Guide. You can read it here.    

Theatre Review: A Doll's House (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester)

Comparisons are odious. Yet inevitable. Greg Hersov’s production of A Doll’s House at Manchester Royal Exchange (which enticed me to make my first, long-overdue trip to this excellent venue) has the dubious fortune to be following hard on the heels of Carrie Cracknell’s recently-revived 2012 take on Ibsen’s play at the Young Vic, a production viewed as the best for many years. Even those of us who weren't entirely persuaded by all aspects of that Simon Stephens-penned version couldn't deny its distinctive elements: an incredible spinning set by Ian MacNeil, for one, and Hattie Morahan’s all-out performance. For many, Cracknell's  production will be a hard act to follow.

Never fear, though. For Hersov and his team manage to make something subtly different but also very compelling out of Ibsen’s masterpiece.  Digging out the play's themes and images with admirable clarity, and with strong performances from all of the cast, this new production has a vibrancy and immediacy that's quite bracing. 

A spry translation by Bryony Lavery, which puts subtle spins on some lines to give them fresh textures, helps. As does the space. While Helen Goddard’s spare design is far more conventional than MacNeil’s was, being played in-the-round gives the piece a particular intensity. The excellent Cush Jumbo  - last seen in fine form as Mark Antony in the Donmar’s all-female Julius Caesar (which made by Best Productions of 2012 list) - cleverly uses Nora’s fractured mini-soliloquies to subtly make the audience her confederates and comrades throughout; we’re with the character every step of the way. Entering with a carefree giggle, ending with the determined stance of a woman who knows she must make a painful break in order to find herself, Jumbo expertly captures the character's complexities: she’s by turns gleeful, wheedling, flirtatious, vain, fearful and shrewd.

The actress is aided – as Morahan wasn’t, entirely – by performances that match hers in quality. Jamie de Courcey is an unusually effective Dr. Rank. Jack Tarlton, who featured in Cracknell's interesting short film variant on the play,  brings both taunting menace and touching desperation to Krogstad. And David Sturzaker gives us a Torvald who considers himself a tolerant, avuncular fellow: an indulgent corrector of his wife’s foibles. Directed for pace, a few moments could use a little more depth and shading. But the production grips and moves nonetheless. The final slamming of the door may not shock as it once did, but the greatness of Ibsen’s play – beautifully brought out here – is that it’s not simply a period piece at heart; rather, it’s a work that still has much to say to us about the damage that an uncritical adherence to societal norms can do to the individual – in the domestic sphere and beyond.

The production is booking until 1st June.

Theatre Review: Merrily We Roll Along (Harold Pinter Theatre)

My review of Maria Friedman's production of Merrily We Roll Along, transferred to the the Harold Pinter Theatre, can be read at One Stop Arts.