The Wykehamist
Ray Crewe grabbed his starring role by the ears and shook it violently, growing increasingly panicked as his hair fell gradually out of place, along with his carefully constructed plan to snatch an artistic investment from the jaws of bankruptcy. QEII’ s eclectic arsenal of stage furniture was transformed into the treasured antique collection of Arthur Zhang’ s aggressively possessive Gorringe, who deemed these stylish decorations necessary to impress both Carol’ s father and the refined Bamberger. Yet with the added difficulties of the power outage, Gorringe’ s early return, Miss Furnival’ s relapse into alcoholism, and Miss Clea’ s determination to return Miller to her arms, chaos reigned on stage as furniture was overturned, identities were mistaken, and relationships collapsed. As the compounding tension reached its breaking point, the ultimate arrival of Methu Menuwara( C, 24-), bringing to play to its resolution as the real, long-awaited Georg Bamberger, felt almost consciously anti-climactic. The vocal doppelganger, sporting an accent hilariously similar to that of Arthur Marre, only compounded the blind confusion of both the characters and the audience. As it so often
turns out to be, love was the answer to the play’ s anxiety: Brindsley was reunited once more with Clea; Carol retreated to the protective stance of her overbearing father; Miss Furnival and Harold Gorringe strengthened their friendship anew. The curtains closed on a dramatically divided, yet clearly blocked out stage of characters.
Shaffer’ s farce lent itself to a production that was, by no means, afraid to be risqué. The love quadrangle composed of Brindsley, Carol, Gorringe and Clea exacerbated Ray’ s distress and disarray as he darted around the stage in a frantic attempt to maintain his fragile façade, while the strategic genius of the lighting conceit allowed for rather raunchy activity in the bedroom to make it past the censors. The abusive possessive natures of Gorringe and Clea left Ray often being literally pushed around the stage, and it was clear that director Johnny Wyatt was well familiar with the art of a stage-slap, several of which Ray was subject to thanks to the romantic tensions playing out onstage.
With such a small and dedicated cast, Cook’ s brought a dazzling energy to QEII, refreshing proof of exactly how sophisticated and slick a house play can be despite its limited budget. The overwhelming vibrancy of the set— and the long list of names on the back of the programme— made clear that pulling off this play was certainly a whole house effort. Credit is due, of course, most of all to Johnny Wyatt, who directed to perfection a notoriously difficult farce. Indeed, the only typical thing about the performance was its ending— lights out.
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