Absurd Person Singular: A rewarding response to the play by that canny ringmaster John P. Kelly.

Photo: David Pasho

In many ways, this is a sterling 40th anniversary production of one of Sir Alan Ayckbourn’s best and funniest plays. Despite one regrettable error in judgment, it’s rewarding to see the way in which that canny ringmaster, director John P. Kelly, responds to the demands posed by Absurd Person Singular. In chronicling the fortunes and misfortunes of three painfully disparate couples over three consecutive Christmases, Kelly certainly delivers on the comedy, but never at the expense of the inner darkness and desolation which tinges Ayckbourn’s portrait of a society and class system in convulsion.

It takes a particularly attentive director to wring hilarity out of the remarkable second act. That’s the one where a depressed architect’s wife makes futile attempts to kill herself in her own kitchen while the play’s other five characters remain so absorbed in themselves that they are oblivious to what’s going on. An outstanding Michelle LeBlanc brings savagely funny credibility to this role, despite the fact that she must remain mute throughout the entire act. In his assured staging of this scene, Kelly is responsive to the playwright’s tragi-comic vision of life as some sort of appalling joke. It could be argued that a faster pace might have served the scene even better — on the other hand, Kelly can take comfort in the fact that his staging of this sequence is vastly superior to the way the 2007 London revival handled it.

Nevertheless, it must be said that the production triumphs in the face of the severe odds inflicted on it by Kelly and his designer, David Whiteley. They seem intimidated by the challenge the Gladstone Theatre playing area poses for a play set in three English kitchens, each of which is intended to make a very specific comment about culture, class and society.

We first meet the social-climbing Hopcrofts in a kitchen which reveals an obsession with cleanliness and with showing off the latest mod cons to their Christmas party guests. Stewart Matthews is brilliant as Sidney, an opportunistic property developer with a weasel-like cunning when it comes to personal and business dealings. Melanie Karin is first-class as the neurotic spouse who’s happiest when she has a cleaning cloth in her hand.
Their guests also include Robert Charlebois, a lovably addled walrus in his portrayal of Ronald Brewster-Wright, the fumbling banker who ends up as putty in Sidney’s manipulative hands, and Lori Jean Hodge, hilarious as the snooty wife who, even through the fog of alcoholism, remains capable of the kind of cutting remark that asserts her superiority over everyone else in the room. That leaves the third couple — the excellent Michelle LeBlanc as the suicidal Eva Jackson, and David Whiteley faring well with the somewhat underwritten role of her insensitive husband, Geoffrey, a failing architect and compulsive womanizer.

In the second act, the action moves to the less-than-pristine Jackson kitchen, where in the midst of Eva’s suicidal despair, we should be finding a different kind of social statement in the physical evidence of a grubby oven and messy housekeeping, coupled with the aura of a disintegrating marriage.

Act three takes us into the kitchen of the Brewster-Wright’s old-fashioned home where the mod cons should definitely not be on display, and where an antiquated heating system is misbehaving to the degree that poor old Ronald is shivering from the cold while he tries to deal with his booze-soaked wife and a visit from the financially destitute Geoffrey. It’s here where the play’s arc ends, with Matthews’ Sidney, now a repellent example of the nouveau riche, relishing the power he now holds over every one else in the group.

Yes, it’s a sour comedy, but it also works because of the vigour of the writing and Ayckbourn’s unsettling gift for holding up a comic mirror to his society. But good as this production is, it would have made a far stronger impact if the set design had better served the play’s purpose. A few superficial changes from act to act are not sufficient to disguise the fact that this is a generic set which cannot properly define the respective cultural and social statuses of the three couples we are spending the evening with. Furthermore, director and designer have ensured that we’ll be constantly aware of the immensity of the Gladstone theatre playing area. This kitchen, in whatever manifestation, looks ridiculously cavernous from start to finish.
Both play and production deserve better than this. Of course, the set demands of Absurd Person Singular pose difficulties on an open stage with no revolving platform, but with some thought and effort they can be met. Witness what that enterprising rural theatre group, Mississippi Mudds, did last year in meeting the formidable design demands of Noises Off. Theirs was an award-winning concept.

Absurd Person Singular by Alan Ayckbourn
Directed by John P. Kelly
Set: David Whiteley
Lighting: David Magladry
Sound: Steven Lafond
Costumes:Anna Lewis
Props: Jen Hogan
A SevenThirty Production at the Gladstone Theatre playing March 6 to 23.
Ticket information at 613-233-4523
CAST:
Jane Hopcroft — Melanie Karin
Sidney Hopcroft — Stewart Matthews
Ronald Brewster-Wright — Tom Charlebois
Marion Brewster-Wright — Lori Jean Hodge
Eva Jackson — Michelle LeBlanc
Geoffrey Jackson — David Whiteley
Dick Potter — Brian M. Carroll
Lottie Potter — Ashley Proulx

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