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London Review
London ReviewAbsurdia
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I think we have finally succeeded in abstracting ourselves from the painful reality of the situation. — Pilou (The Crimson Hotel)
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Lindsey Marshall as Lucienne and Peter Capaldi as Pilou in The Crimson Hotel.
(Photo: Johan Persson)
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The first play of the evening is a revival of NF Simpson’s A Resounding Tinkle. A married couple (Peter Capaldi and Judith Scott) bicker about the dimensions of an elephant they’ve had delivered, whether they live in a semi-detached house or a bungalow, about admitting door-to-door comedians and whether equipping eagles with parachutes and spectacles is a worthy charitable cause. In addition, their visiting Uncle Ted (Lyndsey Marshal) turns out to be a glamorous 1960s babe, whose latest fad happens to be gender change. The tense marital dialogue, unfortunately lacking in any logic or reality, feels extremely tedious at times. Moreover, running as the longest section of the evening, this 45 minute-long play lacks the pace and momentum of the other pieces.
Conversely, the second play Gladly Otherwise is more an extended sketch than anything else. An unexplained visitor scrutinises the layout of a house, to the surprise of its owner Mrs Brandywine (Judith Scott). As he questions the most normal of arrangements, like the wallpaper being against the wall or the carpet placed upon the floor, Mrs Brandywine obligingly does her best to explain.
For me the highlight of the evening was the third offering: Michael Frayn’s witty The Crimson Hotel. A loving parody of classic French farces, it is full of meta-theatrical humour and has many echoes of Pirandello. The plot follows a playwright taking his leading lady to the desert to conduct their illicit affair. The premise is that, having learnt all the "dangers of discreet and charming hotels" from his plays, the writer is confident that the wasteland will contain wardrobe or curtains for wary husbands to hide behind. This plan, however, failed to take into account the power of the imagination. With impressive surround-sound effects, the cast play out scenarios which mimic the plot of a French farce: a nexus of adulterous relationships, on the point of exposure.
One of the reasons Frayn’s play is so successful is because there is a certain amount of artificiality inherent in the acting of any absurd play. Here, with characters in the theatre business, this melodramatic exaggeration simply feels natural. It is, for example, wholly convincing, when Lucienne (Lyndsey Marshal) cries out, "How could any woman resist your stage directions?"
Vicki Mortimer’s set design is an aesthetic treat: a stylised cut-out of a house, complete with 1960s floral wallpaper and a frame of gravel on the floor. As bowler-hatted stage hands people the stage with props, they traipse across the gravel with a satisfying crunch. Punctuating the different plays, a front layer of the house crashes down and creates a new stage.
NF Simpson is decidedly an acquired taste and one which I’m afraid I do not possess. Now showing its age, his writing tends to dip from the absurd into the downright silly. Nevertheless, Michael Frayn’s new play is clever, sharply funny and manages to combine the bizarre with wit.
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ABSURDIA
A Resounding Tinkle by NF Simpson Gladly Otherwise by NF Simpson The Crimson Hotel by Michael Frayn Directed by Douglas Hodge With: Judith Scott, Peter Capaldi, Lyndsey Marshal, John Hodgkinson Design: Vicki Mortimer Lighting: Paule Constable Sound: Carolyn Downing Composers: Stu Barker and Douglas Hodge Running time: One hour 30 minutes with no interval Box Office: 0870 060 6624 Booking to 8th September 2007 Reviewed by Charlotte Loveridge based on 4th August 2007 performance at the Donmar Warehouse, 41 Earlham Street, Seven Dials, London, WC2H 9LX (Tube: Covent Garden) |
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