REVIEW: The Play’s the Thing
The Play’s the Thing
Corpus Christi NMR, 23 May - 27 May
Anyone who has ever attempted to get into the Oxford thespian scene will find this play uncomfortably familiar. Alec Garton Ash, lightly pokes fun at the recognisably excruciating auditions, egomaniacal directors and highfalutin ambitions in his new writing. The Play’s the Thing was originally performed during Cuppers 2004 where it won a Highly Commended New Writing Award.
Garton Ash, with his director Jana Burbach, has rewritten, revamped and recast the original piece in preparation for its presentation at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this summer. The plot revolves around a pretentious director, played with beretwearing aplomb by Alistair Jennings, and his attempts to mount a performance of Hamlet.
He descends into insanity through a combination of his co-directors’ mania, the Texan accent of his main actor and the eventual suggestion that he should cut Hamlet out of Hamlet altogether. Unfortunately, the co-director characters, played by Burbach and Emily Partington, are underused. Too often they look on in silence as the director waxes lyrical; a particular shame given Partington’s wonderful comic timing. However this is a minor quibble of a fun show.
25th May 2006