Unusually, I mislaid the programme for this one. Perhaps abandoned at Don Fernandos – who knows? – I didn’t realise it was missing until it was far too late to do anything about it – such was the way back then…
…Stop Press – March 2021 – rummaging in a file for something completely different (don’t ask) I found the programme. Hurrah.
Deborah Bruce wrote it, Charlotte Gwinner directed it, Helen Baxendale, Clare Lawrence-Moody and Emma Beattie were especially good in it, as was the supporting cast.
Meanwhile this production did so well that Paul Miller revived it the following year as part of his “hunkering down because we have no Arts Council funding” programme. It is a real shame that the Arts Council was so far behind the curve with regard to the Orange Tree. Some would even say more than shame…disgrace.
This was Paul Miller’s first production having assume the reins at the Orange Tree.
We were pretty impressed, although we were looking forward a bit more to the modern works we had booked to see later in the season.
This was a very slick production; well directed, well produced and skillfully acted.
It is a grim play, though. mercifully not too long for its period – or perhaps Paul Miller was prepared to cut a bit, whereas Sam Walters was always orthodox as far as the text was concerned.
A curates egg of a play, this. Good in parts. Irritating in others. It is set in an apartment block in which a pair of Manhatten sophisticates are thrown together with a vulgar pair of Melbournites when their tower apartment block has a total blackout.
Below is a Vimeo of the cast talking about the play:
https://vimeo.com/84795305
I recall we enjoyed the first half of this one more than the second half. Still, we were glad to have seen it and went to Don Fernando for some Spanish grub afterwards.
Perhaps the irritating pun in the title should have warned us off this one – but we like the Orange Tree and the cast included some excellent Orange Tree regulars so we went for it.
We found this a tame, irritating comedy on the whole. We stuck it out – it wasn’t that bad – but it wasn’t that good either and we felt it could have been so much better.
It is often a mistake for an playwright to direct their own play – especially with comedy – this one was an object lesson for that theory.
My weekend pages are a blank at this time, but by a process of elimination Janie and I must have seen this play on 13 October or 20 October 2012. Janie’s diaries (currently in the attic) might help solve that tiny element of the case.
At the time, in 2012, this cartoon-like 1970s play about some bizarre future White House regime, set about 40 years hence…i.e. about now…seemed crazy beyond belief.
Writing in 2018, I realise that the playwright, Jules Feiffer, merely lacked the imagination to envisage a Trump-like character in all his grotesqueness.
I don’t think Janie and I were overly smitten with this piece. It had its moments and some good acting – Bruce Alexander as the President I recall was a bit of a standout – but on the whole it seemed a bit silly and superficial to us.
We rather liked this one. It was about a model who advertises a fragrance getting embroiled in a scandal. The themes seemed very modern and relevant in 2012; a prescient play in many ways.
The plot was a little hard to swallow and Sam Walters’ orthodoxy for not shortening scripts made it drag a bit, especially the second half.
Still, it was well performed by some of the Orange tree regulars and we thought it had been a worthwhile visit.
This was an unusual visit to Richmond and the Orange Tree Theatre in many ways.
For a start, unusually, it was on a Friday. Following one or two “close shaves” after work on Friday evenings, Janie and I normally eschewed places like Richmond for theatre on a Friday.
But this was an interesting looking play on a short run, we had already arranged a theatre visit for the Saturday, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to take the afternoon off, visit mum at Nightingale that Friday afternoon and drive on to Richmond. Janie arranged to go to Richmond by cab and kindly volunteered to drive back to the house after dinner.
It was just before the start of the 2012 London Olympics and I recall that there were lots of “cops out and running about” in London at that time. I had a police escort almost all the way from Clapham to Richmond station – I was pretty sure that cop car had decided to follow me personally when it followed me, after the south circular, along my idiosyncratic route into Richmond.
I even recall mentioning the following to Janie when she got to the Orange Tree. We decided that the whole force was on visibility alert for the Olympics with not too much real policing to do.
Janie and I had dinner at Don Fernandos, then went and retrieved Nobby from the Richmond Station car park.
Janie, with Nobby, at his last resting place a couple of years later, not Richmond Station
Janie hadn’t driven Nobby for a while, so started out a bit slowly/cautiously, sensibly reacquainting herself with the feel of that car.
Very soon after we set off I realised that we were being followed by police again – a different car/pairing of officers. This police car pulled Janie over on the north side of Kew Bridge.
“Why have you stopped me?” asked Janie, wondering what she might have done wrong.
“You were driving suspiciously slowly and cautiously”, said the male officer.
“I don’t drive this car all that often,” said Janie, “so naturally I was being cautious at first…I am insured to drive this car”, said Janie.
“We know that, Miss…Wormlington?” said the female officer.
Janie was then questioned as to where we were coming from and going to, then the male officer asked her if she had been drinking.
“I had one small glass of wine with my food”, said Janie, which was absolutely true.
The policeman then breathalysed Janie, pursuing a line of statements and half-questions which indicated, to me, that he was pretty much “expecting” to see a positive test.
While we were waiting, Janie tried to break the ice with the two of them by telling them about the play we had just seen. The female officer seemed interested and relatively friendly, the male officer merely seemed to be preparing himself to read Janie her rights, explaining what the different indications on the breathalyser would mean.
After what seemed like ages, the male officer announced the result of the test; it indicated that Janie had some alcohol in her breath but it was below the warning line and some way below the legal limit.
The policeman couldn’t disguise his obvious disappointment as he announced the result. He then “warned” Janie to be careful on the rest of her way home, because, if she was in fact over the limit but had merely “got lucky” because of the timing of her test, she might get stopped again and might register a positive breathalyser test later.
Janie restated the fact that she had taken a little more than half a glass of wine with her dinner more than an hour ago.
I couldn’t resist asking the officer why he was warning her, if her breathalyser was below the warning line.
The male officer then explained to me, in very convoluted terms, that he wasn’t officially warning Janie, because her reading was below the official warning level, but he was informally warning her that if she was in fact over the limit she should nevertheless not drive.
It seemed to me, on that basis, that the lines between “over the limit – you’re nicked”, “warning zone – you are dangerously close to the limit” and “below the limit – be on your way” were…to that particular policeman…to say the least…mottled.
The idea of it is wonderful. It is an innovative 1960’s play exploring the meaning of life through the story of a successful man who decides to become a hermit.
Also, James Saunders had a long association with Sam Walters and the Orange Tree, which was being celebrated by this revival.
The play does have flashes of brilliance, humour and insight to it, but in truth we found it fairly hard going as an evening in the theatre. There is one heck of a lot of existential angst involved.
I was familiar with the Shaffer, having read it (I think I might also have seen a TV film version of it), but I was not at all familiar with the Kopit.
Frankly, I could have done without the Kopit. It all felt so obscure I’m not sure I can even describe it to you. Beckett with even less action?
Had it been up to Daisy and/or had I not been familiar with the Shaffer, we might have left at half time and taken our Spanish meal at Don Fernando early. But I really wanted to see the Shaffer and we both agreed afterwards that the Shaffer had been well worth the wait.
I can’t find reviews by the usual suspects for this double bill. Perhaps Michael Billington was spending too much time at Lord’s and not enough time at the theatre that week. Or perhaps my web searching isn’t up to it for double bills.
