A Laughing Matter? Hmm, Yes and No

I have given A Laughing Matter considerable thought, having gone to Sue Lynch’s GRADS production last Saturday night. I suspect my problem is that I don’t have a traditional theatre background – I find Shakespeare as boring as bat shit – opera without the saving grace of powerful emotion-laden music. And although I’m often lucky enough to be cast in English early 20th century pieces, (seemingly inevitably as a cop), my true love is for Australian, New Zealand and American drama. Give me Travelling North, Skin Tight, or Death of a Salesman anytime.

But I’ve always felt I should like and understand the “cultural” stuff, even if, as this was, it’s a contemporary work. For some reason, the play kept reminding me of Last Tango in Little Grimley and Noises Off. And that I think is the issue for me, I feel the playwright tried too hard to be clever. A work that had some excellent comedy and pathos, not to mention an interesting premise, became a “look at me, look at me,” pretentious wank. I’d have cut 40 minutes out of it, most from the first act, which wallowed in wasted time.

However that’s the fault of the playwright, not the director or the cast. And here I should state that I auditioned for a part, as I wanted to see if I could handle a role in such a production. Sue decided against casting me and she was right, I could not have done it justice. Taking this play on was a brave move.

I understood the reasoning (and need for) the minimalist set, but thought the production suffered for it. I would have liked to have seen more intricate touches – more often than not, I felt I was watching rehearsals, no doubt due to the fact that the script dragged in several places, (yes, I'm aware some scenes were rehearsals). Also, I’m not familiar with the acoustics of the Dolphin Theatre, but I certainly struggled to hear some of the female voices – maybe it's a similar problem to that of Rechabites with male voices.

It was the actors who saved the play, with some wonderful interpretations. Perhaps Grant Watson, superb as Oliver Goldsmith and Sonia Marcon, delicious as Mrs Butler, are worthy of special mention, which is not to leave out any of the other excellent cast members, all of which leads me back to the script as the problem,. Somebody needed to say to April De Angelis, “Yes darling, you’re wonderfully clever, (by half!), but have you considered using an editor?”

There were some magic moments of farce and comedy, some pure vaudeville slapstick, but it was too long in coming. Worth going to for the pleasure of watching the craft of the Director, her cast and crew … and also as a lesson (for all writers and journos) in understanding the value of editing.

As a postscript, (in case of accusations of bias), I will add that Sue Lynch and Peter Bloor are much valued friends, I've had the pleasure of working with Tony Rees, a lovely talented guy, I wondered whether the nose Peter Nettleton wore at one stage, was in relation to a couple of recent denials he’s made on this site about having a go at me and finally,  like the wistful memories of a first love, I have great fondness for Sonia and Grant, as they held my hand (metaphorically speaking), when I first took the ludicrous step of appearing on stage.