Reviews

THE PLAYING of farce is a difficult thing – many community theatre companies think it is an easy programme choice. It is anything but. 

Farce requires much precision and the director needs to be aware of – amongst other things - the requisite physical comedy, comic timing and discipline. The actors need to create strong characterisations and be able to perform in a credible larger-than-life way as the absurdities of the plot unfold.

And to do this it can be boiled down to what I term the “ABCDEF” (or alphabet) of farce:-

Short and pithy they may be, but these three Puccini operas remind us how sophisticated this master of storytelling is in aligning musical combinations with so many quick details of plot, theme and rich character.  

The fairy tale of the Beauty and the Beast is timeless.  It can only be because it embodies enduring themes and archetypes.  Transformations are possible, it tells us.  Appearances can be deceptive.  And, of course, Love Conquers All.  The basic story has gone through many transformations: it’s been abridged, rewritten and adapted many, many times as fiction, film (most famously by Cocteau in 1946), television and theatre.

The Odd Couple is as sharp, insightful and humorous as when it first lit up Broadway and sparkles with this excellent cast.

The play opens in the living room of a fancy fashionable eight-room apartment in New York City, that is incongruously in a state of disorder for a poker game hosted by slothful sports journalist Oscar Madison (Shane Jacobson). The wise cracking players fire off each other, with one observing that the milk is standing in Madison’s fridge without a bottle.