BABY WITH THE BATHWATER. To 3 July.

London

BABY WITH THE BATHWATER
by Christopher Durang

Old Red Lion To 3 July 2004
Tue-Sat 8pm Sun 4pm
Runs 2hr One interval

TICKETS: 020 7837 7816
www.oldredliontheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 15 June

Initially vivid style shows limitations despite hard-working performers.Christopher Durang demonstrates how mum and dad do just what Philip Larkin claimed. In act one a baby is screamed over, and at, by quarrelling parents Helen and John, then more skilfully abused by Anne Bird's fearsome Nanny.

Post-interval, mothers scream at their playing offspring, a self-obsessed school principal fails to listen to a child's teacher bringing concerns. And so to grown-up baby Daisy's therapy sessions, a quick-fire montage from explanation through rage to despair of therapist and patient.

Durang's Absurdist comedy frenzied Ionesco, tinged with early Albee - builds a comically horrifying picture of infant influences. Shouted words and experiences from infancy, luridly funny at first, return soured when, as a young man, identity and gender-blurred Daisy drags them as inexplicable sensations out of his subconscious.

Repeatedly the point's brought home how much kootchy-kooing and lovey-doveyness with baby expresses adult emotional need, switching to the offensive at the swing of a grown-up' mood.

Repetition, though, is the trouble. Points are made long before a scene ends. Less would be, if not more, at least as much. With Absurdism what you see is all you're ever going to get. Even the best Theatre of the Absurd writers found full-length plays beyond them.

It also makes for a one-toned performing style. There's never involvement with these characters, nor any political revelation (though poverty and unemployment lurk little-developed in the background). These stage figures go on being what you've pretty soon discovered them to be.

Kazida Productions' cast handle this at precisely if perpetually the right level in Jonathan Lee's cruelly perceptive production, set by Richard Andrejewski in a pink-wash yet unwelcoming room. But it allows for little variation: there are two pedals, soft and loud, and nothing in-between.

Claude Starling's descent into drink, Nicole Milton's self-delusion she could be a novelist, Anne Bird's terrifyingly confident professionals, Charity Wakefield as a mother whose sweetness turns sour, Tom Bacon as the mixed-up kid, are all in tune. Wakefield and Bacon as last-scene parents also offer a final scintilla of hope things may not be so bad next generation, but don't bet on it.

Helen: Nicole Milton
John: Claude Starling
Nanny/Woman in the Park/Mrs Willoughby: Anne Bird
Cynthia/Another Woman in the Park/Miss Pringle/Susan: Charity Wakefield
Daisy: Tom Bacon

Director: Jonathan Lee
Designer: Richard Andrejewski
Lighting: Georgie Hill
Sound: Lee Wilson
Costume: Stelios Geros

2004-06-16 15:04:37