Make Way for Lucia

E F Benson’s Mapp and Lucia novels were written in the 1920s and 30s.  It’s a very gentle form of character comedy, based on the rivalry of the two women, Miss Mapp (played here by Sally White) who is renting her house to Lucia (Janet West).  Essentially, they are competing for the affection of the local community whilst perpetually trying to humiliate one another.  The local community, augmented by Lucia’s artistic friend, Georgie Pillson (Steven Reynolds), were a nicely varied assortment of cameo roles, all given individual mannerisms, such as Diva Plaistow (Rita McDermott) devouring chocolate and the vicar’s wife (Julie Lax) giggling into a handkerchief.  Vying for Lucia’s affection was Major Benji Flint played admirably by John West who, at one point managed the difficult feat of acting drunk whilst maintaining his officer’s accent.

There were lots of costume changes through the piece - particularly for Lucia, including one point where she entered dressed as Elizabeth I, after a garden party at which her coterie had taken part in “tableaux vivants” - a sort of costumed drama without the drama (which is mercifully out of fashion).  These changes left gaps between the scenes which were filled by Lucia’s housekeeper, Grosvenor (played with a Jeeves-like dignity by Marilyn Conway) dressing the set for the next scene as if she were tidying the house.  Very neatly done.

It may be that the pace of comedy has changed, but I felt that the script was slightly over-written.  For example, when Lucia instructed Grosvenor to put the chain on the front door, the audience laughed.  We all knew that the purpose was to keep Miss Mapp from indulging her habit of entering unannounced, so the next line of the script, explained the joke, was unnecessary.  However, the result of the set-up was brilliant.  Mapp bursts in, breaking the chain.  When I caught a brief word with Tim Schuler in the interval, he said that the set had been designed with that entrance in mind; from the audience perspective, we were looking into a reception room, with chaise longue and grand piano.  Upstage, the open arch to the hallway was flanked by pillars and half-walls, forming windows onto the corridor.  Two false doors gave the impression of a large house, whilst character entrances marked the kitchen and dining room to be off stage right, and the front door stage left.  Thus when Mapp broke the chain on the front door, the audience looked through into the hall and saw her explode into view uncontrolledly, ending up sprawled in the central doorway.  (An inelegant entrance elegantly achieved!)

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.