When an author describes his play as "a farcical comedy", the audience has a pretty good idea what to expect. There will be complications in plenty, but none that cannot be resolved in time for a light-hearted ending. Farce demands a certain level of desperation in the characters to really make the plot spin as wildly as it should. Comedy requires that we can recognize some aspect or aspects of ourselves in the characters so that our laughter will be infused with just that note of rueful recognition essential to good comedic theatre.
J. B. Priestley wrote many serious, idea-rich plays during his career, but his 1938 "Yorkshire farcical comedy" When We Are Married has always been one of his most popular. And no wonder! Priestley creates a rich assortment of varying personalities, brings them all together into a single house on a single night, and then -- with a single letter read aloud -- tosses the whole assembly into thoroughly funny comic mayhem.
Like most comedic plays, When We Are Married is a very definite period piece. Unlike many of the genre it does not date too badly. This is largely because the mainspring of the action is the fear (among the 6 main characters) that their deep dark secrets will be exposed, and their dirty laundry aired in public. Who among us can honestly say that he or she wouldn't suffer from similar fears? And so we can all relate to the terror of the Helliwells, the Parkers, and the Soppitts even if the specific cause of their fears holds no terror for us today!
I make the point that this play is a period piece precisely because the Shaw Festival's production ignored the period in presenting the visual and sound aspects of the play. Instead of going back to the Yorkshire town of Clecklewyke in the years just before World War One, the designers have effectively set the play in 1938, the year when it was first performed. But Priestley was quite specific in his intentions: the events take place on the 25th anniversary of three couples who were married, all at the same time, in the 1880s.
The reason why this matters is crucial. The letter which sets the whole party on its ear is an announcement that the parson who married them 25 years earlier was not legally qualified to do so, and therefore none of the three couples are properly married! This news would only raise a few eyebrows in 1938, what with King Edward VIII having lived so openly with his divorced mistress Mrs. Simpson just a couple of years earlier (before he abdicated and married her). Even in the early 1920s the old social strictures were starting to vanish, and by 1938 they were largely dead except among people old enough to remember Edwardian times.
Also, a well-off Yorkshire household in, say, 1911, wouldn't be decorated in the height of London fashion of that era. It would be thoroughly Victorian and old-fashioned by such standards. Albert Parker rubs the point in repeatedly with his ranting about wanting "no swank and lah-di-dah", So the set, in beautiful Art Deco, the costumes in similar style, and the 30s-era music used between scenes, grated intolerably on me. The one genuinely Victorian-looking piece on the stage, the piano stool, looked completely out of place.
I can think of one practical reason why the designers (Ken MacDonald on set and Sue LePage on costumes) and director (Joseph Ziegler) connived in such a poor choice. The shorter dresses used allowed the women to move about more quickly, an admitted advantage in the frantic moments. But then, half the fun of doing the piece in genuine period clothes is seeing the dignity and pomposity of the characters, characteristics which are clearly present and emphasized in the text.
Well, enough of that, The actual performance was a delight from start to finish, thanks to a strong ensemble cast with many of the Shaw's best people, and the brisk pace which they and the director brought to the piece. Curiously, the author introduces a whole raft of minor characters first, before bringing in the principals. Jennifer Dzialoszynski had wonderful presence and comic timing as the maid, Ruby Birtle, who gets far more laughs than a maid is usually allowed. Her recital of the lengthy high tea menu in the first scene was hilarious. Charlie Gallant was excellent as Gerald Forbes, the young chapel organist who reads the letter that throws the fat into the fire. Mary Haney gave a wonderful account of the drunken charwoman, Mrs. Northrop, who gleefully and maliciously spreads the good news around town.
And then, we come to the three main couples. Joseph and Maria Helliwell (Thom Marriott and Claire Jullien) are the solid and respectable hosts of the party. Jullien was especially good in the scene where she threatens to leave for Blackpool. Meek Herbert Soppitt and his overbearing wife Clara were finely played by Patrick Galligan and Kate Hennig. The scene where he finally snaps and puts her in her place was hilarious. Patrick McManus and Catherine McGregor were first-rate as the over-pompous Albert Parker and his quiet wife Annie. The scene where she neatly dismantles him, line by line and inch by inch, is one of the funniest scenes of verbal comedy that I know and these two did it with style and superb comic timing from both.
A final word of praise for the beautifully-played scene in which the drunken newspaper photographer Henry Ormonroyd (Peter Krantz) and his lady-love Lottie Grady (Fiona Byrne) untie the tangled knot of the story. This was played with subtlety and some truly gentle grace notes, a beautiful and touching contrast to everything that had gone before.
I have to admit that I probably laughed louder and longer than many of the people in the audience, largely because I know and love this play so well. But make no mistake: the laughter was long, loud, and hearty right from the first minute of the show onwards. The cast and director certainly did not put a foot wrong in their performance. And probably, only a director/actor who is also a trained historian would get so wound up about the visual aspects of the show being wrong-footed! (I plead guilty to the lesser offence!).
In the ways that count most, this production of When We Are Married is a total delight and a definite must-see!
No comments:
Post a Comment