Date

27th October 2016

Society

Marlborough Dramatic Club

Venue

Brentwood School Memorial Hall

Type of Production

Play

Director

Louise O'Connor

Report

Author: Tessa Davies

This was the first play I saw in the West End way back in the early 1970’s and it has a special place as the first professional production I ever saw.

The play has stood the test of time well, although in its original manifestation it was completely up to date, it now has a degree of nostalgia.  I was so pleased that Director Louise O’Connor chose to keep the two, male, character French, the later versions of this play made them American and it never worked as well.

Louise has brought out all the comedy and the cast exploited it to the full.  Guy Harding played the lothario Bernard well with just the right amount of arrogance in the beginning which rapidly deteriorated to little boy lost when everything started to fall apart.  Bill Wells produced an excellent interpretation of Robert, as the innocent up from the country.  He has an extremely expressive face and he always uses it to full effect.

The three girlfriends; American Gloria, played by Vikki Luck; Italian Gabriella, played by Juliette Bird and German Gretchen, played by Anna Penn-Carruthers, were all good.  Strong portrayals of the nationalities and excellent contrasts to each other.   The last character, played by Margaret Corry was Berthe, the long-suffering house keeper.  This was a master class in character acting, her body language and facial expressions said it all!

Of course, timing is everything in a farce of this calibre and I thought the pace was a little slow on occasions.  However, it was the first performance so I am sure it speeded up as time went on.

The scenery was superb, I have often commented on Marlborough’s attention to detail in the scenery and this was, once again, evident.  With all the doors opening and closing, having a strongly constructed set is paramount and this was exactly that.  For the cast, keeping track of which door to come in and go out from is important and there was just one slip on the night I saw the performance.  I doubt that many in the audience spotted it though!

Costumes were to period, although I thought that Gretchen’s hat was on back to front but that may be just the way I saw it!

Marlborough have once again proved their versatility in the choice of their productions and I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting this excellent play.