The Norman Conquests (Living Together): Witty interpretation captures characters’ charm

The Norman Conquests is a trilogy that takes place in a country house where six people spend a weekend together. Each of the three plays is set in a different part of the house: Table Manners in the dining room, Living Together in the living room and Round and Round the Garden in the garden. The trilogy follows events and relationships between two sisters (Annie and Ruth), their brother Reg, Reg’s wife Sarah, their neighbour Tom (who is in love with Annie), and Norman (Ruth’s husband). While Norman is seducing all three women with more or less success in the span of only two days, events constituting a catastrophic weekend of bickering, adultery and constant frustration unfold. Scene after scene, play after play, all three parts of Alan Ayckbourn’s hilariously comic masterpiece come together and reveal the intertwined relationships between the characters, as well as their hidden  secrets and desires.

In The Norman Conquests, Ayckbourn deals with domestic issues, dysfunctional families and misadventures in middle-class marriages. Although on the surface, it seems to be just a witty succession of simple, funny and easily recognizable domestic upheaval; under the surface, it is much more. Just as Ayckbourn said in his interview with The Guardian, “My West End producer used to say to me, ‘we’re in the giggle business, darling.’ And I’d sort of agree with him, but while I’m all for giggles, I’d also hope that some of what we do would be remembered for a little bit more than just that.”

Therefore, as with most of his other plays, The Norman Conquests is, as much as Jane Austin’s and Agatha Christie’s works, a serious social commentary and character study as well as a comedy. Their authenticity is the result of keeping to a well-known lifestyle and first-hand experience – he comes from an unconventional family (his mother lived unwed with his father while still officially married to another man), and his own married life was very chaotic. He approaches to the subject matter with originality, sincerity and compassion. Reaching deep to the very core of the character’s traits makes his comedies timeless.

It takes an outstanding cast and a master of comedy, such as director John P. Kelly, to live up to the play without losing a moment of bleakness and complex personalities in Ayckbourn plays. In Living Together, Kelly’s timing is perfect, the energy on the stage is engaging and a witty reading of the script keeps the audience connected every second.

Characters are so life-like that we can see in each of them, if not ourselves, than our neighbours, family members or friends. The whole palette of qualities is there. Norman, played by AL Connors, is a selfish, careless seducer, but deep down, he craves love. Margo MacDonald’s Sarah is a cold and proper woman of her class who is ready to lend a hand in any situation, but also a repressed, self-centered and vain bully. Ruth, in Julie le Gal’s interpretation, is intelligent, rational and ambitious, as well as a vulnerable woman irrationally in love with her cheating husband. Michelle LeBlanc as Annie is meek and susceptible to Norman’s advances, but when her innate self-defence system is triggered, she shows her tough and adamant side. David Whiteley’s Tom is seemingly slow-witted, easy to deceive, and caring. Still, he is as self-absorbed and selfish as everybody else around him. Steve Martin’s Reg appears to be a sarcastic lively joker, but also a kind of a recluse absorbed in his board games. The scene when Reg, enraged by the fact that everybody finds his precious board game irrational, asks if the horse jumps in chess makes sense and proceeds to start jumping around imitating said jump, is memorable. More impressive than Steve Martin’s ability to jump as lightly and skilfully as a schoolboy is his ability to express through the action all Reg’s frustration that bubbles beneath the surface. The facial expression and voice perfectly matches his actions, and the real Reg comes alive behind the carefully built mask of man’s man and becomes what he really is: an immature boy who never cared to grow up.

The characters are captured beautifully, each one distinctive and realistic. The intelligent and passionate perception of the director and cast makes captures the characters’ oddities, turning them into disarming and charming people. Hilariously funny, Living Together it is not to be missed.

 

The Norman Conquests

By Alan Ayckbourn

Co-produced by Seven Thirty Productions and Plosive Productions at The Gladstone

 

Table Manners: August 28 to September 5 and in repertory September 30 to October 10.

Living Together: September 11 to 19 and in rep October 1 to 10.

Round and Round the Garden: September 25 and 26 and in rep September 29 to October 10.

All three shows play on October 10.

 

Director: John P. Kelly

Asst. director: Nicolas Alain

Set and lighting: David Magladry

Sound: Steven Lafond

Costumes: Vanessa Imeson

 

Cast:

Norman………………………………………………………AL Connors

Annie…………………………………………………………Michelle LeBlanc

Ruth…………………………………………………………..Julie Le Gal

Sarah………………………………………………………….Margo MacDonald

Reg……………………………………………………………Steve Martin

Tom……………………………………………………………David Whiteley