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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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Four in a quest for
past glory
Quartet Grange Players, Grange Playhouse, Walsall **** OR BELLA
figlia dell'amore Three aging opera stars inhabiting a retirement
home for fading theatricals, all fighting off the stifling cloak of
senility with a mixture of concerts, intrigue and committees is a
scenario full of laughs and a reminder of mortality – the only thing
certain in this life. Ronald Harwood’s 1999 play is cleverly written
with a great sense of fun, tinged as we get to know the four characters,
the quartet, with a little sadness. These are characters you
recognise, perhaps only too well among those whose better years have
drifted, almost unnoticed, behind them, which adds a poignancy to what
is a fine comedy. We have the quite, mild mannered, unassuming
Reginald, who likes everything to be in order and formal, noted down in
his pocketbook, and is played with a wonderfully understated calm by
Robert Onions. He never gets flustered, until his ex-wife
appears that is, or whenever he sees Nurse Angelique, a sighting which
unleashes a torrent of vitriol in regular skirmishes in what appears to
be a long running breakfast feud. Then there is Wilfred, the life and soul of any
party with a preoccupation with all things sexual. Men apparently think
of sex on average 19 times a day; without Wilf the average could well
drop to single figures. Guy Radforth plays him beautifully with
considerable zeal as a bearded, fun-loving white haired would be
lothario. The pair once worked together along with the third member of their trio, Cecily, a once mezzo-soprano of some note. The note is no longer as clear as it was though and Cecily has trouble remembering things and at times drifts into a parallel word from a different age. She is played with a sad vagueness by . . . don’t tell me . . . begins with a G or is it an N – like that women who didn’t like sex on the telly . . . Barbara Woodhouse . . . no, no, Mary Whitehouse, that’s it Mary Whitehouse, and doesn't she come from Karachi? Karachi? You need to be there to know why. Cecily’s past involved, should we say, a lot of
horizontal exercise, leaving her with her own memorable, and not so
memorable, personal cast list. All three give a sympathetic portrayal of elderly
people in various stages of decay who are keeping young by a mixture of
mischief and companionship. The trio worked many times together in the
past and find an easy comfort together as the lights dim on their lives
– until the arrival of Jean, a sophisticated, beautiful - and still
attractive - mega-star of the opera in her day, a day a generation ago.. Susan Lynch gives her a haughty and vulnerable
air as the diva who has fallen on hard times, something she finds hard
to accept, and who ended up as a charity case in a home for
retirees from the world of opera. Jean was married to Reg for a while but neither
want to talk about it nor will she discuss why she refuses to join the
trio in a proposed revival of their famed quartet from Verdi’s Rigoletto
in a gala concert at the home, a concert to mark the 200th
anniversary of Verdi’s birth in 1813 on October 10th. The friction sees the mild mannered Reg show
flashes of petulance rather than out and out anger – that is reserved
for Nurse Angelique – and it is in the second Act as the quartet reveal
parts of themselves from their pasts that they become human and we see
them in a sadder, softer light. Cecily regrets her promiscuous past while we find
out the desolate truth about Reg and Jean’s marriage - and Jean’s real
reason for her abrupt retirement to look after her home and children
some 30 years ago. As for Wilf? His truth is both unexpected and yet
so predictable as he enters the play’s confessional. We realise we all
know a Wilf. Suddenly we have four elderly residents, long ago
opera singers who no long know if they can still sing and whose lives
are drifting to the final curtain with little more to show for their
time on earth than memories and a newly re-released CD of the four of
them in Rigoletto. Will they ever sing together again? You will have
to go to the Grange Playhouse to find out, and it is well worth the
visit.
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