Good Judgment In Group Theatre Play

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32235, 2 March 1970, Page 14

Good Judgment In Group Theatre Play

"Out at Sea.” By Slanotnir Mrozek. Produced by Endel Lust. Group Theatre. Walters Spotlight Coffee House. March 1. 2,3, 8. 910. Running time 8.30 to 9.05. In his “Theatre Notebook,” Jan Kott describes Mrozek’s plays as a blend of Shakespeare, Kafka, and Jarry. a description which suggests a formula for an unusually concentrated theatrical poison, and one can easily see how. in Shaw's hands, “Out at Sea - ' could have been something pretty unpalatable. In those of his longer plays which have been translated. Mrozek tends to resort to stage gimmickry to avoid tedium: even the one-actei “Strip-tease" uses a colossal hand to relieve ideological pressure. As a play. “Out at Sea" comes off through the playwright's keen sense of just how much philosophising he can fit in without alienating the audience Endel Lust's production also showed excellent judgment of transitions in mood: in this, his understanding of Mrozek's intentions appeared to be perfect, and the result was pleasingly coherent. All the action takes place on a raft at sea: three survivors of a shipwreck anticipate starvation by resorting to cannibalism. The occasional arrival and departure of a stray swimmer allows some scope for a change of direction in the story, but the fundamental outcome* seems fatally predestined, and one character surrenders himself to sacrifice. All this amounts to thinlyveiled political allegory on a very generalised plane, and as such contains not satire so much as simply the statement of an idea. Performed in the original context of Polish theatre, there might perhaps be some specific political al .lusions, but the “Group’* production attempts to achieve no more than pessimistic and ironical extravaganza. Consequently. their performance managed to fuse the entertain-

' ing with the thought-provok-ing into a well-balanced di- , version. Robin Woolier, Endel Lust, and Bob Gibbons presented three extremely well-dressed castaways, their suit trousers rolled up to reveal white, hairy, and decidedly tinweatherbeaten ankles, achieving all the necessary incongruity to prevent the play being taken just on its primary level as a simple story. Verisimilitude doesn't matter much (and can be quite destructive) in extravaganza: the actors intelligently stylised their various emotional outbursts—virtually essential in the coffee-house situation Robin Queree acted both the role of sea-faring butler and distance - swimmer - cumpostman. Bob Gibbons looked good and spoke well: his “gritty” appearance was hardly appetising, and his plaintive whine made his final submission seem reasonable. The most obvious fault of the production was that the ending didn’t draw enough attention to itself: a stronger climax is needed to heighten the almost absurd pathos. —H. D. McN.