Review: BLACK COMEDY, Orange Tree Theatre
Theatre is going through something of a Peter Shaffer moment to mark the author’s centenary, with a new production of Equus recently opened and Amadeus promised for next year. His Black Comedy is seen less often, although it does reappear in the schedules from time to time. It’s given an appropriately frantic and pacy production at the Orange Tree, although the in-the-round setting does tend to diminish some of those frozen movements that occur in this play when a hand is about to descend in the wrong place, or a blundering figure is headed for a fall.
Originally written for the National Theatre at Chichester in 1965, later transferring to the Old Vic, it received stellar casting then and included the likes of Albert Finney, Maggie Smith, Derek Jacobi, Ian McKellen and Michael Crawford in various early productions. Presenting the play at the Orange Tree offers extra potential for audience involvement, and this must be the first production of the play to break the fourth wall so blatantly, even if not totally logically…
The premise, for those new to it, is that an attempt to replace furniture purloined from a neighbour in his absence is almost foiled by a sudden power cut. So far, so prosaic, but it is the genius of Shaffer’s plotting and character creation that creates a farce which builds continuously to the inevitable denouement.
Shaffer’s masterstroke is to have the stage fully illuminated for the scenes where the characters are in darkness – and vice versa. It’s an idea he got after a visit to the Peking Opera, and the resulting one-act play has remained in the repertoire, but requires the appropriate level of manic involvement and determination and no-one in the cast must ever find anything funny – however much the audience does so. All well understood by this cast, and by director Caroline Steinbeis, working with physical comedy consultant John Nicolson, although perhaps not taking those performances quite to the level needed for this kind of farce.
No reservations, however, about the performance of Joe Bannister as Brindsley, manically gritting his teeth and determined to survive the evening with the correct furniture, a sale of his artwork and the company of at least one of his two girlfriends. The performances around him are all good but perhaps too authentic and truthful at times: however, the characterisations will probably be dialled up as the run continues, and all the better for it. Julia Hills is already sublime as Miss Furnival, discovering alcohol and getting over her fear of the dark. Simon Manyonda’s character, Harold Gorringe, is written to be played as a caricature but he manages the tricky task of creating a believable character and doing so as a farceur supreme.
The other slight reservation relates to the decision to offer this one-act play on its own. It originally ran as a companion piece to Shaffer’s White Liars and has been seen memorably paired with Strindberg’s Miss Julie or Coward’s Fumed Oak, offering an evening of repression and then release. Seeing Black Comedy on its own without a more serious curtain-raiser is a little like having a meal that consists only of a dessert.
Despite these reservations, a great time was had by all in the audience and this must be one of the funniest evenings currently on offer in London: surely what we need at a time like this. And now, will someone revive Shaffer’s Royal Hunt of the Sun – despite the enormous and mostly male cast and stage directions like “They cross the Andes…”
**** Four stars
Reviewed by: Chris Abbott
Black Comedy plays at the Orange Tree Theatre until 11 July, with further info here…
https://orangetreetheatre.co.uk/whats-on/black-comedy/#20260528
Photo credit: Sam Taylor