Dangerous Corner at the OLT. Shrill and Hollow Melodramatics Enacted on Stage.

Photo: Maria Vartanova

“I think it must be a comedy of some kind,” whispered the bewildered playgoer who had been sitting next to me. She was wrong.

But it’s understandable she might make such an observation following the opening-night performance of Ottawa Little Theatre’s deplorable production of Dangerous Corner.

By the second act, this was clearly not an audience gripped by the psychological suspense inherent in J.B. Priestley’s 1932 play. Instead, titters throughout the house reflected a growing uncertainty about how to respond to the shrill and hollow melodramatics being enacted on stage. And when it was finally time for the climactic offstage gun shot, the dramatic currency of Priestley’s neatly constructed piece had been so devalued that this moment had about as much dramatic impact as the fizzle of a damp firecracker.

To be sure, Dangerous Corner is conventional in its basic situation: one loses count of the number of plays whose momentum has depended on a succession of shattering revelations involving the characters. But Priestley, a playwright fascinated by the mysteries of time, came up with an unexpected and tantalizing dramatic device in this, his first stage work — the idea that a chance remark can lead us to a “dangerous corner” and a wrong turning that can have a devastating effect on many lives.

This is what happens in the course of a dinner party presided over by publisher Robert Caplan and his wife Freda at their country estate. There’s a shadow hanging over the evening — the lingering shadow of Robert’s brother Martin, who committed suicide a year previously. But it’s the presence of a musical cigarette box in the drawing room and one character’s casual reference to it that open the floodgates. Before the evening is out, we learn that every character in some way has been implicated in Martin’s death. We are also plunged into revelations about illegal drugs, adultery and homosexuality — inflammatory subject matter for London’s West End in 1932.

Priestley’s Pandora’s Box of a play can seem contrived, especially to a modern audience, but it still can provide gripping entertainment if placed in capable hands.

The biggest mystery of this OLT revival is how so many capable people — beginning with director Geoff Gruson — could botch up so badly.

The warning signals start sounding during the handling of the challenging opening scene in which we’re introduced to the characters. There was every sense the other night that Gruson and his actors were anxious to get through this section as quickly as possible. There was a total absence of dramatic rhythm and nuance; instead there was cacophony: unceasing babble, strained accents, and frequent incomprehensibility. At its worst, it was like being subjected to a recording being played back at high speed.

Cast members seemed more intent on striking poses and offering strident caricatures than they were in defining characters or finding dramatic substance and emotional truth in important moments of exposition. Hence there was no suggestion of grief or psychological pain in the references to Martin’s suicide: the perfunctory flavour of these exchanges suggested these characters could just have easily been talking about letting the cat out. Even the crucial sequence involving the music box seemed inadequately orchestrated.

The lack of real conviction in most performances, coupled with a general air of collective hysteria, left Dangerous Corner teetering on the brink of unintentional parody. There were occasional moments opening night when Venetia Lawless showed some insight into Freda Caplan’s conflicted emotions, but the normally dependable Dale MacEachern seemed to regard husband Robert as a comic buffoon rather than a tragic figure. As for Chantale Plante’s portrayal of Olwen Peel, a pivotal character in the play, her flustered reading merely conveyed the impression that she might prove a superb Miss Prism.

Tim Ginley’s set showed some solid features, but that painfully make-believe piano looked as though it had come from a damaged freight sale.

Dangerous Corner continues at Ottawa little Theatre to June 27.

Dangerous Corner by J.B. Priestley

Director: Geoff Gruson

Set: Tim Ginley

Lighting: John Solman

Sound: Melinda Roy

Costumes: Liane Racette

Cast:

Freda Caplan………………………………………………Venetia Lawless

Miss Mockridge……………………………………………Susanna Doherty

Betty Whitehouse…………………………………………..Heather Archibald

Olwen Peel………………………………………………..Chantale Plante

Charles Stanton……………………………………………Jarrod Chambers

Gordon Whitehouse……………………………………….Phillip Merriman

Robert Caplan……………………………………………..Dale MacEachern