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Stars explained: * A production of no real merit
with failings in all areas. ** A production showing evidence of not
enough time or effort, or even talent, and which never breathes any real
life into the piece – or a show lumbered with a terrible script. *** A
good enjoyable show which might have some small flaws but has largely
achieved what it set out to do.**** An excellent show which shows a
great deal of work and stage craft with no noticeable or major
flaws.***** A four star show which has found that extra bit of magic
which lifts theatre to another plane. |
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Party provides a theatrical treat
Party to remember:
Malcolm Stanley Robertshaw
(left) is The Birthday Party Highbury Theatre Centre, Sutton Coldfield ***** A FINE company
gives full rein to the possibilities of Pinter. We begin with the humour
engendered by Barbara Garrett as Meg, the seaside boarding-house
landlady who addresses her long-suffering husband in the daffy,
sing-song tones that betoken what used to be called a ninepence-in-the-shilling
brain. But in the course of what
is today a rare three-act format the audience is led from fun into
puzzlement and then into fear – with the second act finishing in pitch
darkness and chilling shrieks.
This is a sterling production directed by Nigel Higgs, with a company of
six who don't put a foot wrong. There is menace that comes with a
wheedle. There is a remarkable verbal assault on Meg's longstanding
lodger by two strangers who have come looking for him and attack him in
turn, a quickfire phrase at a time. There is a door that is closed with
seeming purpose but no hint of what terrors may follow.
Malcolm Stanley Robertshaw is Stanley, the lodger. We don't know much
about him or why the unexpected visitors are intent on doing him harm.
But we watch him, clearly anxious about two callers who have caught him
still in his pyjamas, and we see his frantic attempts to stem what is
apparently inevitable.
Robert Hicks is Goldberg, the more authoritative of the strangers –
smartly dressed, suave, exuding gentle menace with a rolling delivery.
Not by any means to be trifled with. Dave Carey, seen right with Hicks
(left), is McCann, his sidekick, a man with the habit of
tearing paper into narrow strips and erupting in fury if someone touches
them. This is a splendid
partnership, nowhere better delineated than in the sound and fury of
those pell-mell phrases and the high-speed nonsensical debate about
possibility and necessity.
Bhupinder Kaur Dhamu is Lulu, the attractive young woman who catches
Goldberg's eye but regrets it next morning. This is a vibrant, glowing
performance that leads to blazing anger in the cold light of day.
We watch perhaps 36 hours go by in the home of Meg and her husband,
Petey – but Meg, a carefree delight in a world of her own, seems largely
unaware of what has been packed into them. Barbara Garrett is a delight.
I thought at first that she would either have to abandon her remarkable
delivery or see me flee screaming from the theatre, but in fact it soon
merges into the close-packed improbabilities of the production – just
another aspect of a riveting evening and, like every other feature,
beautifully achieved.
Petey (Peter Molloy) has long since switched off from his wife's
repetitive conversations. He is the play's outpost of normality, the
rock on which the waves of life simply break and go away; more an
observer of events than a participant until the enormity of what has
happened under his own roof suddenly hits him – by which time, it is too
late. And with it all, of course, are the Pinter pauses, the silences that must cause whoever is in prompt corner to be worried sick. They are beautifully, teasingly deployed. It is a joy of a production, and it is endowed with an excellent lighting plot that is not afraid to take on the demands of those brave and prolonged moments of Stygian gloom. To 27.3.10. John Slim
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