‘Intimate Exchanges’ fun, despite rough spots
There’s a cute game of dress-up transpiring at the Irish Classical Theatre Company, which has dredged up an intermittently charming pair of comedies by Alan Ayckbourn for its traditionally lighthearted season-closer.
Ayckbourn, the British playwright whose massive oeuvre is dwarfed only by his seeming lack of faith in the redemptive qualities of the human race, wrote the two plays that make up the Irish Classical’s production as part of an ambitious theatrical experiment called “Intimate Exchanges.” Ayckbourn wrote eight plays for the series — with 16 separate endings — all to be performed by just two actors. This dude likes limits.
Fortunately for attention-challenged audiences, Irish Classical has chosen two of Ayckbourn’s shorter pieces from the collection, the numbingly banal “A Gardener in Love” and the far more boisterous and comically assured “Affairs in a Tent.” Irish Classical Artistic Director Vincent O’Neill and actor-in-residence Josephine Hogan played the evening’s six roles with a certain degree of opening-night creakiness Friday, when the play kicked off its run in the Andrews Theatre.
In “A Gardener in Love,” we’re introduced to two of Ayckbourn’s woebegone protagonists, the driven-to-drink headmaster, Toby (O’Neill), and his perpetually perturbed, begrudging
wife, Celia. They are constantly embroiled in a war of demure, British words, which is always threatening to break out into a dull drizzle. A gardener, the bumbling but not altogether unattractive Lionel (O’Neill, naturally), catches Celia’s eye and imagination, and before long the two are hatching a half-baked plan to start up a pastry shop. Fasten your seat belts.
The play is not without its genuine comic moments, both verbal and physical, which are captured best here by O’Neill in his character’s grand pronouncements about the tragic difficulty of life as an alcoholic in an unhappy marriage.
Heavy eyelids perk up markedly in the second act for “Affairs in a Tent,” which is just about exactly what it is. We again meet Celia, by now deeply entrenched in her ill-advised attempt to run a baking business with the sluggish Lionel. As the play opens, Celia and Miles Coombes (who but O’Neill?), the president of the board of governors for Toby’s school, are chatting about Celia’s new business venture as a school track-and- field event gets under way outside. As Celia sets up tea for 20, Coombes advises against the business plan, but Celia is having none of it.
As Celia and Lionel’s collaboration slowly breaks down, Celia’s patience and sanity begin to evaporate like so much spilled tea, and this is where Hogan’s comic talents arrive in full force. Her best performance of the evening is as the nosy and overbearing Irene Pridworthy, who can’t help but dispense unasked- for advice to one and every soul she encounters. O’Neill, too, as the irksomely urbane
Coombes, lovably uncouth Lionel and irascible Toby, seems more confident — and thus a great deal funnier — in this second act.
In sum, “Intimate Exchanges,” directed by Greg Natale and with sparse and effective sets by Ron Schwartz, isn’t the worst way to drop $40 on a Friday night. It might be best, though, to wait until the play and performers warm up to one another in week or so.
Theater Review
“Intimate Exchanges”
★★ 1/2
Presented by the Irish Classical Theatre Company through June 28 in Andrews Theatre, 625 Main St. For more information, call 853-4282 or visit www.irishclassicaltheatre.com.
Log into MyBuffalo to post a comment
MyBuffalo is the new social network from Buffalo.com. Your MyBuffalo account lets you comment on and rate stories at buffalonews.com. You can also head over to mybuffalo.com to share your blog posts, stories, photos, and videos with the community. Join now or learn more.
Reader comments