Two couples lock horns at an Ayckbournian dinner party: it’s a very basic and conventional set-up which stands or falls on the strength of the characters.
The repressed-but-childish host and painfully proper hostess are trying to stick to the written plan for the evening. Their neighbours and guests are the flirtatious and rebellious Jackie and her grimly normal wannabe-husband. Jackie is the locus of the disruption, which often involves insane one-upmanship between the two men.
The iterated theme is the games people play. The dinner party is a series of incidents, each of which starts off mild but obviously doomed. These are deftly manoeuvred into confusion and awkwardness by the slick and engaging cast. Everything has to go a step to far. Then another step further, just to be sure.
Little time is wasted in destroying any hope of a “nice” soirée, pretty soon we are seeing Gestapoesque small-talk, force-fed marshmallows, and semi-nude wrestling. Initially this is treated as straight comedy, but as the play draws to a close, things get a little darker and become genuinely uncomfortable as the pressure is forced to escape. At one point Jackie is tortured with mere words and it’s to the writer’s credit that this actually works.
Although excellent, this isn’t quite in the same league as, say, “Abigail’s Party”, but this is only for lack of ambition. Look out for future Tangled Feet productions.
4/5
Bernie Greenwood
