Directors’ Showcase. Orange Tree Theatre. 29 June – 9 July.

The Directors’ Showcase at the Orange Tree Theatre, in Richmond, south London, runs from 29 June to 9 July 2011, with a double bill.

Winter by Jon Fosse, directed by Teunkie van der Sluijs, is designed by Sam Dowson. A tired businessman meets a woman in a city park. Beautiful but dishevelled, she presents an enigma that he finds difficult to resist. He brings her to his hotel room, and sets in motion a compelling liaison that will alter their lives for ever.

Then The Snow Came by Oscar Wilde, adapted and directed by Jimmy Grimes. Designed by Katy Mills. When Stuart tells Mickey this touching tale of social conscience, love and loyalty, the pair embark on a journey that echoes the fragility of their own lives. But in the end, loyal as they both are, each will have to deal with their own personal dilemmas.

Teunkie van der Sluijs and Jimmy Grimes are the current Trainee Directors at the Orange Tree Theatre. The scheme has been in operation since 1986 and has provided the first important step for many young directors who are now succeeding in various areas of British theatre.

An old-fashioned girl

‘Mary Broome’ at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond

Katie McGuinness plays Mary Broome, an Edwardian servant to a middle class household

When middle-class Manchester households had ‘staff’ and young sons, problems like this must have been not too unfamiliar – housemaids becoming pregnant that is. But the initial problem which serves to drive the elder Timbrell (a permanently florid Michael Lumsden) to distraction is only the beginning of a series of issues in which the catalyst is the younger son of the household, Leonard (Jack Farthing).

He starts by proposing to run away – to run away, having stolen his mother’s housekeeping money, without either a blush or nod toward responsibility (or it would seem, a thought for Mary Broome, now pregnant with his child). Leonard is as laid back as it is possible to be, and feels neither guilt nor, it seems, love. Sometimes, something approximating to affection is there, but it is a pale shadow of the real thing. One wonders how the pregnancy ever came about, unless it was by some wayward (possibly beautiful) thought.

Leonard is an artist. He writes (‘sketches, impressions’…). He has insights to which others are not often admitted. He sees, in the characters of his mother and his eventual wife Mary Broome, a certain wildness, a desperate and committed individuality – of the kind that leads all those EM Forster heroines (this play is of the same era as Howards’ End) to commit themselves to danger and their own unrestrained human natures.

Leonard may see, but he cannot act on any other principle than to please himself – moment by moment. He is charming, he is erudite and he bears no grudges, but he is – to his father and brother at least – totally infuriating. Meanwhile Mary (Katie McGuinness), the mother of his child, is awkward, untutored but also youthfully decisive and if not ‘pure’ then certainly loving, aware of a duty to remake the world in her own generation. In the end, Leonard’s insight is as empty as his father’s posturing, as is his whole family’s acceptance of the roles and processes of society in an England where only very tiny deviations from the normal are tolerated.

Leonard may look for deeper significance, but his ability to be insightful comes at a price. He is casually cruel to all around him, even if his sins are those of passivity (inaction rather than intention), their pain goes deep, too deep at last for his wife, who is the moral touchstone of the play.

This is old-fashioned drama, done in drawing rooms and amongst post-Victorian clutter, where upwardly mobile families cling to society’s forms and imitate those of an unknown upper class (one tea caddy for China, one for Indian). The thrust and energy of Manchester society that gave the Industrial Revolution to the British Empire is now a pale imitation of what it was. Changes arrive each day – the end of the horse-drawn cab being just one – but the days of families like the Timbrells (and the Broomes too, if it comes to that) are numbered if they cannot adapt themselves to the new age.

Director Auriol Smith keeps us alive with wry smiles and laughter and while this play may not be ‘one of the great comedies’ as it was once acclaimed to be, it is both eminently watchable and entertaining, and writer Allan Monkhouse has created in Leonard a character who is both infuriating and personally charming, indifferent and alarmingly without a sense of self.

Cast: Charlotte Brimble – Maid; Martha Dancy – Ada Timbrell; Harriet Eastcott – Mrs Pendleton; Jack Farthing – Leonard Timbrell; Bernard Holley – Mr Pendleton;  Kieron Jecchnis – Mr Broome; Emma Johnston – Maid; Moir Leslie – Mrs Broome; Michael Lumsden – Mr Timbrell; Katie McGuinness – Mary Broome; Paul O’Mahony – Edgar Timbrell; Emily Pennant-Rea – Sheila Ray; Eunice Roberts – Mrs Timbrell; Eve Shickle – Mrs Greaves

Writer – Allan Monkhouse; director – Auriol Smith; designer – Sam Dowson; costume – Jude Stedham; lighting – John Harris

(c) michael spring 2011

reviewed Friday, 18th March

Orange Tree, Richmond – Feb to June

The Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, south London has announced its new season running from Feb to June 2011

Reading Hebron, by Jason Sherman, 9 Feb to 12 Mar 2011. In February 1994 Dr. Baruch Goldstein, a settler in Kyria Arba, walked into the Mosque in the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, shot dead 29 Muslims at prayer and wounded 125 others. Nathan Abramowitz seeks the truth for himself about what happened, and why, and asks himself whether he too, as a non- Israeli Jew, is also in some way implicated in those deaths.

Mary Broome, by Allan Monkhouse, 16 Mar to 23 April 2011. As the marriage of the elder Timbrell son is eagerly anticipated and wedding presents are arriving, it is revealed that the younger son, in this upwardly mobile family, has become involved with the housemaid, Mary Broome. The results for all are unexpected.

Autumn and Winter, by Lars Noren, 28 April to 28 May 2011. Families. Can’t live with them. Can’t live without them. In Autumn and Winter we are present at a regular family dinner with mother, father and their two daughters. But the evening develops into one of accusations, guilt and denial. Family dinners will never be the same again…

Three Farces – – Slasher & Crasher, Grimshaw, Bagshaw & Bradshaw and A Most Unwarrantable Intrusion., by John Maddison Morton, 2 to 25 June 2011. Thwarted lovers, disgruntled uncles and a jam loving suitor are among the characters caught up in this array of farcical encounters.

The Company Man, by Torben Betts

The Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, 19:45, 6^th October- 6^th November 2010 (2hrs 25 with interval)

This two-act play explores the history and future of a dysfunctional family and a troubled marriage with impressive impact.  At the same time, the production remains compellingly true to life.  Torben Betts’s touchingly humorous yet tragic script is handled subtly and maturely by all cast members.  Special mention must go to Bruce Alexander and Isla Blair. The one for his carefully paced, necessarily painfully slow, character progression, and the other for her brilliant adaptability – from energetic, bright-eyed, middle class and unable to make herself heard, to trapped in a wheelchair, struggling to speak but finally the centre of attention.

The Orange Tree Theatre boasts a reputation for being ‘the only permanent In the Round Theatre in London.’  This is all very well, but staging such an intimate production this way requires especial sensitivity of both direction and design.  To their credit, Adam Bernard (Director), Sam Dowsen (Designer) and notably William Reynolds (Lighting Designer), understand their space completely.  A Victorian chintz sofa with perfectly matching cushions, a small coffee table and pearl-peach light create the living room. Spin round and you enter the garden, remarkably it becomes impossible not to imagine the French door that separates them.  Dark green metal patio furniture, a soft limelight, speckled with yellow and the twitter of birds.  The final space is the Jane’s (Isla Blair’s) sick room. Cut off in a far corner, this white lit square, home only to a small night-stand bedecked with medicines and a CD player and digital video camera with its small hanging nightlight, is both disconcerting and strangely tranquil.

The play opens with a celestial shaft of light as Jane (Isla Blair) is wheeled in by her adult daughter Cathy (Beatrice Curnew).  William Reynolds’ lightscape provides a stark premonition of the play’s finally scene.  Quickly this light flashes out with the wave of brightness caused as a car passes under a bay window at night.  We hear the car.  Moments later James (Jack Sandle) confronts his sister Cathy in the opposite corner of the stage.

This first scene gets the play off to a slow start.  Beatrice Curnew’s acting is rather forced.  Her forward-jutting head and world-weary voice force her into a fixed state.  Her actions lack the presence that comes more naturally to the other cast members.  But then, Cathy is a hard character to play.  She (the character) excites an unpleasant and unremitting sense of pity in the audience which risks becoming tedious. To Beatrice Curnew’s credit she has created a character who is not really present to portray a coping mechanism.  Sadly this is a-dramatic.  Jack Sandle’s initial performance also feels a little stifled.  The pace is slow, the dialogue tired and James’ alcoholism (represented by him removing a bottle of wine and glass from his hold-all and lounging on the floor like a tipsy cat) is rather contrived.  The audience is left anxious that this is going to a very clichéd two hours indeed. The next scene, in which Jane is introduced, does little to relieve the worry. Isla Blair’s grating voice and paralysed left side are an expert portrayal of her illness but do slow the play’s pace horribly in this opening sequence and it is hard to care for the rather two-dimensional characters being set up.

However, the human encyclopaedia that is William (Bruce Alexander) brings an entirely new energy and life to the stage. He is a dangerous ball of brewing anger.  Bruce Alexander’s portrayal is flawless.  His rigid posture to his gormless mouth and slightly popping eyes, his northern twang and his contorted facial expressions all come together to create a perfect caricature.  Yet what make his performance special are the touches of softness that are undeniably there.  The play builds momentum wonderfully as it intertwines past and present action, clearly delineated through Isla Blair’s faultlessly swift changes from immobility to sparkling life. From the demonic father with a bloodied face and a belt in his hand, shouting his son out of his house, to a smiling ball of tense humour, perched on the sofa offering to take his wife to London for a show, “you can’t fault a Lloyd Webber!” Bruce Alexander’s William keeps the play alive while like a puppet, Isla Blair is heart-breakingly trampled by her husband in her days of good health, and in the present, carried by her daughter to her prison-like chair.

In act two, credit, while remaining with all the cast, must go to Jack Sandle. Faced with the impossible task of making James, an aging and manic-depressive selfish brat with a drink problem, human and subtle he succeeds.  “If you’re gonna scream at me” he shouts into his iphone, his rant interjected seamlessly with snippets of his father ranting about the benefits of capitalism from the garden, “then you’re gonna have to scream at me in English!”  His marriage to his “little Thai bride” is falling apart.  Jack Sandle’s comic timing is impeccable.  His childish grief, however, is unnervingly believable, “I don’t want her to die.” He repeats again and again when talking about his mother.  His wide mouth, his trembling lower lip and his loose hanging arms perfectly capture the sense that he is a lost little boy, turning to alcohol because he never really learnt how to “be a man.”

This is a tear jerker of a play.  It is a striking impression of domestic life gone sour.  William is the self-made ‘Company Man,’ whose own business, drive and success have demolished his personal life and the lives of those he most loves. Precise direction and some fantastic performances make this production well worth seeing.

Company Credits: Director – Adam Barnard. Designer – Sam Dowson. Lighting Designer– William Reynolds.  Assistant Director – Teunkie van der Sluijs.  Fight Director – Philip D’Orleans.  Stage Manager – Stuart Burgess.  Deputy Stage Manager – Sophie Acreman.  Assistant Stage Manager – Becky Fisher.  Production Technicians – Michael ‘Gadget’ Sowby, Hilary Williamson.  Assistant Design – Katy Mills.  Production Photographer – Robert Day.  Rehearsal Photographer – Teunkie van der Sluijs.

Cast Credits: Bruce Alexander – William.  Isla Blair– Jane.  Beatrice Curnew – Cathy.  Nicholas Lumley– Richard.  Jack Sandle – James.

(c) Rebecca Gibson 2010

Reviewed Friday 8^th October 2010