|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Theatre listings > Things We Do For Love. The play premiered on 29 April 1997 at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, England. Playwright - Alan Ayckbourn. Director - Ben Twist. Designer - Ken Harrison. Costume Designer - Anya Glinski. Lighting Designer - Jeanine Davies. Fight Director - Raymond Short. Company - Pitlochry Festival Theatre Company Website. Cast - here . Venue - Pitlochry Festival Theatre. Dates - here . Run Time - 2 hours 30 mins including 15 mins interval. Reviewer - Thelma Good. Oh the pain of succumbing. Passion like sh*t just happens, and sometimes the people concerned take an instant dislike to one another till suddenly they find, despite their initial reaction, attraction rears its seductive, wilful head. So it is in Alan Ayckbourn's 1997 play Things We Do For Love. Barbara is a woman who won't see forty again, she's attractive but years of being a PA to the unseen Marcus has made her somewhat severe. Her immaculate flat is part of a house she owns, in the basement lives a lodger Gilbert, a postman who we discover, but not Barbara, has a talent for plumbing and for painting. When the play opens we see not only her flat but the underneath it the top few feet of Gilbert's also in view is a ladder he uses to paint a picture on his ceiling. Above Barbara's flat we also see the bottom two feet or so of the flat above where Gilbert is adjusting the heating for her before her old schoolfriend Nikki arrives with her new man Hamish. We also see the house's stairs and lobby and Ayckbourn's play makes full use of the challenges and opportunities such a stage set yields. Nikki and Hamish are going to stay in the upstairs flat while their new place is being made ready. Hamish has left his wife for Nikki, he's a Scotsman and there are many jokes made about his nationality for the play is set in London. At times this makes the play seem a strange choice for a Scottish theatre, we can laugh at so called Scottish foibles, and many of the Pitlochry audience hail from down south so it plays to their prejudices too. Jacqueline Dutoit captures the mindset and demeanour of those many woman who never got a chance to combine a career and marriage - a tough exterior always hoping someone would see the woman inside. She had hopes of Marcus once. Nikki, Helen Logan, is a few years younger than Barbara, she's still a girl at heart and is plainly besotted with Hamish. She's some what thrown when she realises he and Barbara take an instant dislike to one another and Logan does the dizzy and the anguish of Nikki very well indeed. Gilbert is equally thrown when he's invited to dinner with the three at Barbara's flat. He's living underneath Barbara but he'd like to be closer and Richard Addison gives us every painful inch of a man who has no idea how to be a social animal. Hamish has no such problem, it's clear from the off why Nikki is attracted and Dougal Lee gives powerful intimations to his character. Hamish might seem a bit flaky when it comes to picking women till you realise he's one of those men who don't so much choose, as let things happen. It is an amusing comedy well played here under Ben Twist's direction. Compared to Ayckbourn's A Small Family Business or Absurd Person Singular the background detail is more loosely sketched in and, Gilbert aside, the subtext of the characters is less well suggested. Viewed under ten years after it premiered, the women it depicts, the trapped single woman and the not too bright, always with a man to keep them together woman, once all too common types are becoming fewer. More and more sisters have learnt they can do it for themselves and these two women feel a tad dated, even though these sorts of women will never wholly disappear. Ayckbourn's bitter sweet comedy reminds with some uncomfortable force that passion and love leaves scars. Sometimes on the couple as well as on the people who care for them. You leave wondering if the so sharp at the time, agony of denying such powerful urges is better than the taint and pain of succumbing. © Thelma Good 13 May 2005 - Published on EdinburghGuide.com Cast - Barbara - Jaqueline Dutoit, Nikki - Helen Logan, Hamish - Dougal Lee and Gilbert - Richard Addison. Dates of Pitlochry Festival Theatre's production of Things We do For Love . Runs in rep 5 May - 22 Oct 2005. 5 May* at 2pm and 8pm, 7 May* at 8pm, 13 May at 8pm, 21 May* at 2pm, 25 May* at 2pm, 27 May at 8pm. 2 June at 8pm, 6 June at 8pm, 11 June* at 2pm, 15 June* at 8pm, 18 June* at 8pm, 21 June at 8pm, 22 June*at 2pm 24 June at 8pm. 1 July* at 8pm, 6 July* at 8pm, 9 July* at 8pm, 14 July at 8pm, 21 July at 8pm, 26 July at 8pm, 27 July* at 2pm. 5 August at 8pm, 10 Aug* at 8pm, 16 Aug at 8pm, 17 Aug* at 2pm, 26 Aug at 8pm, 29 Aug at 8pm. 3 September* at 2pm, 8 at 8pm, 12 at 8pm, 17 Sept* at 2pm, 24 Sept* at 8pm, 28 Sept* at 8pm. 7 October at 8pm, 10 Oct at 8pm, 15 Oct* at 2pm and final performance 22 Oct* at 2pm. Theatre Editor, Thelma Good's e-mail is thelma@edinburghguide.com Although every effort has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the information presented in these pages, no responsibility can be accepted for any errors or omissions. Theatre listings >
|
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|||