‘A Season of Plays’

Press, 23 July 1987, Page 6

‘A Season of Plays’

“A Season of One-act Plays,” presented by Elmwood Players, July 22 to 25. Running time: one hour 50 mins. Reviewed by Mike O’Brien. The one-act play can be a very satisfying dramatic event — compact, concentrated and engaging. Elmwood Players’ "season” offers three such plays in a balanced programme that will provoke, disturb and amuse. First on the programme is Riccarton Players’ winning entry at the recent Festival of Community Drama, "Sequence of Events,” by George MacEwan Green. This is a powerful drama set in the brooding Victorian world of respectable, decent people. There has been a murder; reasons are unravelled as the action seesaws across the stage; the sequence of events unfolds, and with it the mystery. There are good performances by Barry Grant, Mark Hyde, Pearl CaSenter, Heather Giles** andTGreg Lovat. DougW

Clarke deserves much credit for his tightly controlled, evenly paced direction. He has a good eye for detail. “The Rhymes of Emma” dramatises the horrors of incest — its destructive effects on the victim, her isolation from a family who act and react like cardboard cutouts, and the detached “caring” afforded by professional help. Jo Collins resists temptation to overplay the complex, tormented Emma. Hers is a controlled performance, well supported by Susan Brown, Tony Couch, Christine Hicky and John Howden. One cannot fail to be moved by the subject and its graphic dramatisation. Written and directed by David Thomas, it is stunning play which deserves wider exposure. After the intensity of the first two plays, Richard Harris’s “Albert” was welcome light relief. This is great fun, a situation 'comedy based on the ex-

treme difficulty, not to say impossibility, of communicating with foreigners when one does not speak the language. Imagine a gregarious Italian in dire need of a 100, a typically English Englishman in desperate desire for a lady, and a Finnish “au pair” in sole charge of a baby and you have half the picture. Where words fail, mime tries to succeed — with ridiculous results. Unravelling the situation deteriorates as a lady sitting on a bean bag draws shocked embarrassment, a bosom means more than an “au pair,” and there is more than one use for a bowler hat Donald Bruce is superb as the florid Nico, expansive of gesture and equally expressive. Julia Allen and Graeme Randle complete the cast They have an excellent rapport “A Season of One-act Plays” presents a varied and satisfying programme. It will shock, get you tanking, and certainly Witertain.