REVIEW: Canting and Canapés
Canting and Canapés
Burton Taylor early slot, 16 May - 20 May
When a play’s characters bemoan “narcissistic commentary branded as student journalism”, any reviewer might pause for thought, but challenging its audience is exactly what Tamara Barnett’s new play sets out to do. Billed as a satire on the unspoken hypocrisies of modern life, it follows the shenanigans which take place at a fraught drinks party when four friends are reunited ten years after leaving university.
Barnett’s script is as sophisticated as her characters, with many genuinely comic moments. However, the dialogue’s over-reliance on sarcastic humour, salted with plenty of aphoristic wit, might make the audience fear that Canting is all glittering, sharp-tongued surface, with very little underneath. In a play about hypocrisy, of course, that could well be the point.
Canting opens with Damian asking whether the bar’s tables are edible, and even the play’s best lines often come off sounding too clever by half. Barnett’s direction is similarly problematic, as the play’s successfully sustained realism is too often punctuated by jarringly surreal touches. Whatever the script’s drawbacks, the cast is excellent, all six actors handling demanding material with confidence.
Nickalls’s darkly sexual Damian emphasises his character’s cynical misanthropy, the energy in his diction hinting at barely controlled violence. Skye Lucas-Banks also stands out as feminist Nicole. Barnett aims to make us reconsider the insincerity of human relations, but by settling for a self-consciously arch and trivial style, she limits her play’s own power. These Canapes suggest, but never satisfy.
11th May 2006