All the fun of the fair
Insanity Fair
The Pilch Theatre of Howett Walk, 15-19 November, 7.30pm
Production: 3/5
Cast: 3/5
Direction: 3/5
Jana Burbach has created an utterly silly production of Ionescu’s The Bald Soprano and The Lesson, but then, as Ionescu was the founder of absurdist theatre, this is probably no bad thing. The first of the evening’s double bill, The Bald Soprano, is a satire based upon the inanities of the English language, and the unhappy tedium of a bourgeois marriage. Meet Mr and Mrs Martin, both from Manchester, both living on the same street, in the same flat, on the same floor of the same house.
Through a process of deduction these erstwhile strangers come to the terrible realisation that they are in fact married and parents to the same child. Tamara Barnett, is particularly fine as Mrs Martin, her experience as a Burlesk regular shining through the assured physicality of her actions. Elsewhere, Burbach’s emphasis on the physical is less successful, as when James Bowler hams it up, or when the Fire Chief (Laurence Woolley) gets slightly too physical with Solvej Krause’s Maid.
The second of the two plays, The Lesson, is more of an achievement, with the strong central pairing of Heather McRobie and Rupert Stone as dim student and frustrated Professor (credit to Burbach for finding a Professor who does convincingly play ‘A Grown Up’). Trying to impart the basics of arithmetic drives the Professor to distraction, as McRobie rather sweetly confuses elementals, leading to the amusing outburst of frustration that she always has the ‘tendency to add’.
The dynamic between the two does seem to work rather well, as we follow the student’s attempts to understand her tutor through his abstruse language, and witness his growing distraction at her continuing failure. If you are in the mood for silliness and nonsense you will be well pleased; the production whole-heartedly embraces both.
10th Nov 2005