Act Naturally

The Director pitched the show to the Faringdon Dramatic Society after reading a lot of scripts online, because the humour of the piece appealed to her.  I can understand that, as it was consistently amusing, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny.  But the play also presents some dramatic challenges: like Hislop and Newman’s “A Bunch of Amateurs”, it requires the actors on stage to portray a group of folk who are themselves putting on a play, with the different levels of characterisation that this implies.  The title of the play, “Act Naturally”, brings its own imperative.  Could the company do it?

Well, yes and no, but this really isn’t a criticism of the company.  For reasons that become apparent in the Second Act, the various characters that we meet at a committee meeting of the Fannington Historical Sites Preservation Society are drawn rather larger than life, and the necessary emphasis on certain behavioural traits and opinions tends to make these personalities a bit two-dimensional.  Despite this, a lot of the business of the meeting was well observed; I have certainly attended plenty of committee meetings that proceeded in similar ways!

Somehow the committee decides that it is going to put on a play to raise funds, and the Second Act shares the fruits of their labours, which is very much in the tradition of “The Play That Goes Wrong”.  Now we understand why the various characters we met in the first act were just a little bit two-dimensional, as their defining traits feed into their onstage personae.

It really was the most glorious send up of all that defines drama performances a little below grass roots level.  The entire cast did an excellent job of delivering their lines badly, often failing to synchronise lines and actions, and the moment when a conversational loop is established, accompanied by rabbit-in-the-headlights expressions, was perhaps the comedic highlight of the evening.  It wasn’t always easy to determine whether or not a prompt was required or scripted, but the tendency for some actors to paraphrase their lines, or to misguidedly try to help another player towards a forgotten line, were grimly familiar.

Even the technical crew contributed to the Second Act atmosphere by mistiming their cues, but in reality, of course, the production team did an excellent job with limited resources.  The functional box set exactly looked the part, with its practical doors off to the hall’s loos and kitchen, its noticeboard suitably dressed, and the little details such as the cycling helmets hung up on the wall hooks – not to mention the practical clock telling the right time!  The office setting’s understated transformation into a park, with a few bits of greenery here and there, matched the ambition of the fictional play-within-a-play.  Properties and costumes were all entirely in keeping with the premise of the production, with the characters in the murder mystery sporting low-budget approximations to the costumes they required.  The lighting and sound ensured that every action and word was clear, and I particularly liked the hand dryer effects from the Council Office toilets.

The murder mystery in the second act came with its own programme, a masterpiece in its own right.  The layout, use of clip art, over-capitalisation, classic spelling errors, and a wonderfully parochial programme note were all completely characteristic of a rank amateur production.  I did appreciate the “Rejected by NODA” logo!  However, I think we can regard the production as a whole as “Approved by NODA”.

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.