Kindly Leave The Stage

Several members of the Players had come together to direct and perform "Kindly Leave The Stage", a play-within-a-play, written by John Chapman, who, amongst some of his other perhaps better know works, penned "Dry Rot" and was one of the script writers for the much-loved BBC television series "Are You Being Served?"

The action takes place in a 1970's decor garden flat in Hampstead during a dinner party hosted by "Rupert" and "Sarah", who have just had a major row, to the embarrassment of their guests, "Charles" and "Madge", a married couple who just happen to be solicitors.  As "Sarah" strives to continue to play the good hostess, "Rupert" drags on a large trunk and proceeds to start packing up his personal belongings.  As there appears to be no chance of a reconciliation between the couple, "Charles" and "Madge" then offer to handle the divorce case.  Into this chaotic scene, "Sarah"'s mother "Mrs. Cullen" arrives, her car having broken down and seeking assistance.  She detects the tension between her daughter and son-in-law and attempts to calm matters down, to no avail.

At this point in the play, the actor playing "Rupert" suddenly comes out of character, as he angrily accuses his fellow actor "Charles" of having an off-stage affair with his real-life wife, the actress playing "Madge" and threatens him with a paper knife.  "Charles" leaps into the trunk for protection.  The rest of the cast initially try to carry on with the original play, with calls off-stage for the prompt to get the producer to close the performance down.  The play then degenerates into a frenzied public row between "Rupert" and "Charles", further complicated by the actress playing "Sarah" revealing that she has a real-life crush on "Rupert", all this being witnessed by an unsuspecting audience, who, by now, are thoroughly confused!  To cap it all, "Mrs. Cullen"'s husband "Edward" arrives on stage in a highly inebriated state and is totally confused by the turn of events, particularly as he had invited his agent to the performance in the hopes that he may revive his glory days as a celebrated Shakespearian actor!  Calls for "is there a doctor in the house?" are responded to by the "theatre's in-house first-aider Nurse", who unsuccessfully attempts to remove "Edward" from the stage and gets caught up in this scene of utter chaos.

This play is essentially a light-hearted, but challenging, send-up of theatrical folk, which strives to be funny, but instead becomes a confusing mix and, at times, I struggled to keep sense of the plot, as, I suspect, some of the other members of the audience did too, particularly as the script deliberately contains moments when the dialogue loops back on itself - any actor's nightmare!  Unfortunately, there were too many instances in this production where the action lagged through delayed cues, thus slowing the pace and effectively losing any opportunity for the audience to feel any real drama over "Rupert"'s threat to harm "Charles" with the brandished paper knife.

That said, the players put in confident performances of their dual roles: Steve Woolmer (who we're perhaps more used to seeing in his annual role as the pantomime dame) gave a commanding performance as "Rupert", with David Meechan as "Charles", the somewhat nervous object of "Rupert"'s rage, who cowardly defends himself behind "Madge", well played here by Steph Manning.  Sammy Mann played a convincing role as "Sarah" and Sheila Bronson put in a good performance as "Mrs. Cullen".  Jeff Bronson, as "Edward" the drunken has-been actor, obviously enjoyed the opportunity to reprise lines from some of "his" former Shakespearian roles.  Henry Turner was amusing in his cameo role as the "prompt" and Lilo Phillips gave a warm and sympathetic performance as "Nurse".

The stage set, with the large trunk taking up quite a lot of space front of stage, which rather restricted movements for some of the cast, was quite authentic in its creation of a 1970's apartment, though not quite as expensively appointed as the programme perhaps suggested.

An interesting, if puzzling, evening's entertainment.

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.