Cast Soups Up A Creaky, Old Vehicle
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday November 13, 1992
BRITISH writer Edward Taylor sets his play in a 10th floor, intensely modern flat overlooking the English Channel. His characters wear contemporary clothes. They speak in contemporary idiom. They use contemporary technology -computer, cordless telephone, time and humidity-controlled air-conditioning.
And it seems from the biographical information about the playwright in the theatre program that this play was indeed written quite recently.
Why then does it feel like a text straight out of a 1950s British repertory season? Was this intentional? If so, why not set the play in the 1950s where it might at least have the charm of nostalgia? Why, in this age of such sophisticated crime and thriller writing - albeit mostly for film and television and, of course, the novel - invent a plot that has as much cliff-hanging tension as a thimble hunt on the vicarage lawn? That is not to say that, within a general framework of predictability, there aren't a few surprises - even a thimble hunt can twist away in unexpected directions. It can be jolly good fun to boot. And there is some fun to be had from Taylor's script. But of suspense and intellectual testing and teasing - essential thriller ingredients - there is very little.
It is then a veritable triumph that this company manages to make of this text quite pleasant entertainment. Director Sarah Carradine plants, it seems, her tongue firmly in her cheek. From the highly charged melodrama of her opening music to the extravagant, double-take climax of the final scene she exploits the cliches of the genre. Designer Wendy Osmond establishes the play's visual context with great accuracy: expensive, white-walled, impeccable anonymity.
This is the balcony flat of two of the central characters, television crime writer Harold Kent (Geoff Cartwright) and his interior designer wife, Emma(Mary Regan). It is, though, Duncan Wass, as Harold's long-time collaborator Paul Riggs, who drives most of this play's action. On the surface they seem an ill-matched pair. While Harold is all shifty, clipped speech pretention, Paul exudes a rough, oozy and irresponsible charm. In the end, though - or perhaps in the beginning - he's no less devious.
Both Wass and Cartwright develop these characters with relish. They make the most of the comedy that Taylor might not have intended but is, nevertheless, in his play. This plot, they seem to say, shouldn't be taken too seriously. They ring the changes on the balance of power within their relationship with glee - who is victim? Who is villain? Which hat holds the rabbit? How can you be sure? And in this production, Wass and Cartwright are nicely supported by Regan as the guilt-plagued Emma and Rhett Walton as Inspector Egan. There's just one question, though, that they must leave unanswered: how did this play creak its way into the Marian Street season?
© 1992 Sydney Morning Herald
