| Company Continues To Create Its Own Distinctive Theatre |
At Frapetsus |
| Frapetsus- I'll Be There Now in a Minute! , Theatr Mwldan Cardigan , September 20, 2013 |
There is much craft in the writing for Frapetsus’ fourth touring production and the continuing tale of the Williams family of Trimsaran. There is a strong pedigree now of actors who successfully make the transition to stage writer, of whom Matthews Trevanion and Bulgo, and Rory Kinnear currently in London, are examples. Actors start with several advantages and Jack Llewellyn’s script illustrates three that matter. The first is an ear. The language of his southern end of Carmarthenshire is not that of Swansea. It is an area pitched between urban and rural and it is not Cardi language either, even though the mileages that separate the areas are small. It has a rolling rhythm to it. For purposes of comedy it is not one that lends itself easily to snappy one-liners and Frapetsus’ comedy is one of situation. Jack Llewellyn has devised a novel piece of comedy, whereby mother Angharad extends a “child comes free” offer to include a thirty-year-old son in the form of living-at-home, down-on-his-luck Rhodri. Like all good comedy it has simultaneously that touch of absurdity which is underpinned with logic. The second attribute is a crafted sense of form. Structure is not a nice-to-have-if-you-can-get-it item; it is the art’s core. The second act, a little over fifty minutes, has a skilfully worked-out unity to it. It introduces two new characters, very different in age, role and personality. As a device it gives the play a kick of renewed energy. Jack Llewellyn engineers a climax in which two bits of plot click together in a way that is wholly satisfying for an audience. The third piece of knowledge that an actor brings is a feel for rhythm. Stage writing is a tightrope of language, that partly determines character but primarily illuminates connection, and disconnection, between characters. Monologue may make for performance, but it doesn’t make drama. “I’ll Be There Now in a Minute!” features two couples with thirty years of marriage apiece behind them. The bounce and rhythmical rightness of the dialogue between both pairs, Sara Harris-Davies and Danny Grehan and Tony Wright and Nia Trussler Jones, is part the deep experience of the actors and part the skill of director Dean Verbeck. Comedy is based on truth of observation. It is truth that the suitcases of Britain’s summer holidaymakers are weighed down by teabags, baked beans and sausages. Rhodri is exasperated to discover his parents have gone one stage further and packed the kettle as well. The human core to “I'll Be There Now In A Minute!” is a difference in the genders. A shared liking for a pint and common support for a rugby team is enough for men to fuse, shallowly, in a way that women rarely do. Angharad and Poppy are separated by a whisker of class difference, expressed in the wine bar versus the Rugby Club, the Daily Mail versus that the Sun, the child named Chelsea versus the one named Rhodri. The second deeper current of distance is the knowledge by one spouse that a partner has once courted the other, even at an interval of thirty years in the past. Poppy may make remark of “the low quality of people in this area” but there is a generosity, even sweetness, of approach in the writing towards the characters. They may be capable of sly slurs and innuendo, and but there is no sense of authorial patronising towards lives bounded by home, family, and an annual holiday trip to Gwynedd. Dai may grab his wife’s new credit card and snip it in two with the opinion “These things are lethal.” She may say to him “If I want your opinion then I’ll give it to you” but these are relationships of love bulwarked on tolerance and plain familiarity. Characteristically, the play includes a scene where a male, swayed by an excess of gin, proposes folly and is rebutted by a female who dispenses sense and fealty. Unusually the plot is focused on the middle-aged. Son Rhodri, played by Jack Llewellyn himself, has a subdued role restricted to tolerance of parents and later romantic awkwardness. Louise Kirrane brings bagfuls of charm to Laura, a role that is written more as plot device than with depth of character. Neil Harris is a full-blooded, skimpily-shorted Deano, a stage presence who can only be fully appreciated by the tour’s audiences. “I’ll Be There Now in a Minute!” is popular comedy. The storyline means that the first act is stretched slightly, containing as it does only a few points of plot mechanism. The weight of the writing leans towards character. But the people on stage are familiar; the audience gets to look at its own world and that is not so common in Wales’ theatre. |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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