Invincible

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As a fan of British playwright Alan Ayckbourn, I was disappointed that the current Brits Off Broadway season at 59e59 Theaters does not include one of his plays. Not to worry. Instead, we have this impressive play by Torben Betts, an Ayckbourn acolyte who learned his lessons well. In this comedy of manners with strong sociopolitical overtones, we meet two memorable couples. Oliver (Alastair Whatley) and Emily (Emily Bowker) have recently moved to northern England from London. They rationalize that their move is to provide a better life for their children, but the truth is that they can no longer afford London since Oliver has lost his civil service writing job in the latest government belt-tightening. Abstract painter Emily, whose idea of a coffee table book is Das Kapital, claims she wants to live among the “real people.” They rent, because she does not believe in private ownership of property and they are not married, because she thinks it is a decadent institution. She is, to put it mildly, high-strung and overprotective, for reasons we will find out later, of their sleeping toddler, checking the monitor constantly. The ineffectual Oliver generally yields to her wishes. They decide to invite their next-door neighbors, Alan (a perfectly cast Graeme Brookes) and Dawn (the marvelous Elizabeth Boag, seen in New York in Ayckbourn’s Hero’s Welcome and Arrivals and Departures) over for tea. Postman Alan is an ordinary bloke whose only sin is that he is boring. Voluptuous Dawn married too soon and now regrets it. The awkward encounter between the privileged hosts and their down-to-earth guests is a monumental clash of class and culture. One example: when Alan goes on about watching football on TV, Emily counters that devotion to sports teams and watching TV makes people stupid. The hilarious first act leads to darker moments in the second act. Dawn, worried over the safety of her son on duty in the Iraq war, observes that the sons of the upper classes never have to serve. Alan muses on the difficulty of scraping together a living. We gain insight on why Emily is so dour. Oliver finally asserts himself. There are crises. The characters are extremely vividly drawn and their problems resonate for us. The actors are all strong, especially Graeme Brookes, whose take on Alan is worth the price of admission. The set and, particularly, the costumes by Victoria Spearing, assisted by Minglu Wang, are assets to the production. Director Stephen Darcy is not afraid to give each scene time to breathe. It’s a play that provides both lots of laughs and lots to think about. Running time: two hours 20 minutes including intermission.

Hero's Welcome ***

The annual Brits Off Broadway season is back at 59E59 Theatre. The prodigiously prolific Alan Ayckbourn is represented by the U.S. premiere of his 79th play as well as an evening of older short plays which I will review next week.. One of the pleasures of an Ayckbourn season is becoming reacquainted with fine actors who have appeared in previous seasons. This year three actors who graced the 2014 season have returned. Richard Stacey plays Murray, an acclaimed military hero whose return to his home town after 17 years wreaks general havoc. Elizabeth Boag plays Alice, the town’s mayor, whom Murray jilted at the altar. Russell Dixon is her much older husband Derek, a model train fanatic. They are joined by two other stalwarts of the Stephen Joseph Theatre (SJT) of Scarborough, Ayckbourn’s artistic home — Charlotte Harwood doubling as Kara, the abused wife of Murray’s old friend Brad and as Simone, her daughter, and Evelyn Hoskins as Madrababacascabuna (Baba), the young war bride Murray has brought home. Stephen Billington, although an apparent newcomer to SJT, fits in seamlessly as the toxic Brad. Murray’s return is not welcomed by those he upset long ago; nor is his plan to remodel and reopen the pub once owned by his father but now the property of the town council and a candidate for demolition. Past events are explained more fully in a way that generates compassion for the characters. Designer Michael Holt’s set design, greatly assisted by Jason Taylor’s excellent lighting, delineates four distinct areas — a BBC studio, the living room of a mansion, a generic hotel room and a large kitchen with a model train running through it. The play is plot-heavy and would benefit from a bit of tightening. While it does not represent Ayckbourn at his best, it nevertheless offers much to enjoy. As is his custom, the playwright directed. Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes including intermission.

Ayckbourn Ensemble ****

All praise to the folks at the Brits off Broadway festival at 59E59 Theater for bringing us three works by Alan Ayckbourn (two world premieres and a New York premiere) performed in repertory by a superb ensemble of 11 actors from the Stephen Joseph Theatre of Scarborough, the company that Ayckbourn directed for 37 years. I know that I have said on other occasions that playwrights should not direct their own plays, but I hereby make a notable exception for Ayckbourn. After working with a core of the same actors for many years, he knows how to get exactly the right tone from them. I have seen other productions that were marred by overemphatic acting either allowed or encouraged by their directors. 

Farcicals ***

Realizing that only 7 of the 11 actors appeared in both the other plays, Ayckbourn whipped up a pair of one-act farces for the remaining four. “Chloe with Love” and “The Kidderminster Affair” share the same characters, two rather mismatched couples — Penny (Elizabeth Boag) and Reggie (Kim Wall) plus Teddy (Bill Champion) and Lottie (Sarah Stanley). The first shows Lottie’s hilarious attempts to stoke her husband’s interest. The latter describes a hysterical attempt to hide an adulterous indiscretion. Both are sheer froth, but the word play and physical humor in the second play rise to a high level of inspiration. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes including intermission.

Playing with time and space is a frequent feature of Ayckbourn’s work. We see it again here, both in “Time of My Life” from 1992 and “Arrivals and Departures,” his new play (#76). 

Time of My Life ***

We meet the Stratton family, parents Gerry (Russell Dixon) and Laura (Sarah Parks), their elder son Glyn (Richard Stacey) and his wife Stephanie (Emily Pithon), who have just recently reconciled after a separation, and their younger son Adam (James Powell) and his new girlfriend Maureen (Rachel Caffrey) as they gather at the family’s favorite restaurant, a vaguely Middle Eastern place, for a boozy celebration of Laura’s birthday. After the initial party scene, the play fractures into three strands: we follow Gerry and Laura as they remain at the restaurant, we move a year or two into the future with Glyn and Stephanie, and we go backwards in time with Adam and Maureen to their first meeting. All the action takes place in the restaurant. An added touch is that one actor (Ben Porter) plays the restaurant’s owner and all its diverse waiters. We end up where we started as the birthday party begins. It sounds gimmicky, but it works surprisingly well except for a scene in the second act that goes on much too long. The play’s theme seems to be “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.” Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes including intermission.

Arrivals and Departures ***

This new play is deliberately less comic than the others. It combines a satiric look at bureaucratic ineptitude with the recollections of two disparate characters, each of whom has been subject to betrayal. A military special forces group led by Quentin (Bill Champion) has concocted a hare-brained scheme to catch a terrorist at a rail terminal in London. Disguised as ordinary people, the group ineptly rehearse their roles before the train arrives. Ez, short for Esme, (Elizabeth Boag) a sullen soldier who is awaiting court martial, is assigned to babysit a chatty older man, Barry (Kim Wall), a traffic warden from Yorkshire who can possibly confirm the suspect’s identity. Awaiting the train’s arrival, Ez looks back on the personal history that has turned her into an edgy, mistrustful person. Much of the second act is a mirror image of the first, except that this time it is Barry who reminisces about his unhappy past. The plan to capture the terrorist does not end happily. I found the ending a bit jarring. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes including intermission.

The ensemble is so uniformly fine that it almost seems unfair to single out anyone. Nevertheless, I will mention that Boag, Champion, Parks, Porter and Wall made especially strong impressions. Jan Bee Brown's set designs for all three plays are simple but effective. 

You may wonder why I rated Ayckbourn Ensemble higher than any of its components. In this case the whole IS greater than the sum of its parts. Seeing the three pieces together in one day increased my admiration of the playwright/director and the superb ensemble cast.