Experts abandoned

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32675, 3 August 1971, Page 11

Experts abandoned

The Court Theatre, at present enjoying a successful season with its production of the Tom Stoppard comedy "The Real Inspector Hound," is already rehearsing its. next production, "The Formation Dancers," which will succeed "Inspector Hound" on August 18.. The choice of this play has not been without problems. as Mrs Yvette Bromley, a director of the Court, describes in the following article:

Unblocking the drains and choosing the plays are two of the chores with which a director of the Court Theatre has to cope. My belief is that when faced with such problems one should always call in the experts. This is easy enough in the case of the overflowing cisterns, but who do you call in to choose the next play? Who are the experts at that particular job? Actually, that’s quite easy to answer, although you won’t find them listed in the yellow pages. They are numerous and vociferous and anxious to help, and there is no charge. They are the actors who suggest a play in which they took the lead in 1930, or the ones who want to take the lead in 1971; the egg-heads who revel in Pinter

and Beckett; the others who smirk, “Why not ‘Oh! Calcutta!’ ”; the too-old or the untalented who smell a chance at being cast at long last; the ones who “Leave it to you” but like something "very funny;” the ones who know exactly the play, the one about the man who meets this girl and then the other bloke but ’ they can’t remember the name, or the game, or the first number they thought of, or anything at all except that all the plays that you’ve presented have been ghastly.

On the other hand, you get the objections too kinky, too old-hat, too long, too few in the cast (which translates to, “There isn’t a part in it for me”). Or they suggest a play they saw done on Broadway or at the Old Vic last year (still running, with the rights unlikely to be released for three years and the production costs no less than six thousand dollars).

So it boils down to having to discard the experts, and plunge alone. And sometimes boob. But no matter which play you choose, be it “Hair” or “Hamlet,” you can’t please all of the audience all of the time.

The Court Theatre is trying not to get a label tied around its neck for this or that type of play, on the other hand, one must guard against having.no fixed policy at all and ending up pleasing none of the people all of the time. Or of keeping our public in a state of apprehension about what in God's name they're going to have to sit through thia time.

The middle of the road might be the answer, if one only knew where that was. But one continually finds oneself sliding towards one verge or the other. So the next play at the Court is another funny. "The Real Inspector Hound” was a roll-in-the-aisles-comedy, hilarious in parts, witty in others. "The Formation Dancers” due at The Court on August 18, is a sophisticated, scintillating comedy of modem manners. The dialogue has bite, and sometimes bitterness, and there will probably be many shocks of recognition amongst the Court's audiences as they watch the four characters in the play take sides, part, link up again with a different partner, and fight out a battle of words and witticisms.

' The story has a simple, uncomplicated start. Maggie is married to Gerald and is bored with him. Gerald is to be allowed to sharpen his teeth on a new victun, Perdita, secretary to Gerald and Maggie’s oldest friend, Paul.

But, alas, it appears that she is More Than a Secretary to him. However, she goes off for an illicit week-end to Manchester with Gerald, unknown to Paul but with Maggie's approval. Need I say that complications follow and that the plot thickens? Thickens, but doesn’t become heavy. Right to the end, and out to the foyer, lightness prevails. It is indeed a dance, a frolic, a light-hearted, cleverly written play guaranteed to twitch the face of even football supporters remembering the .first test.