Mantrap & Whodidit? (2 one act plays)

One Act plays are, generally, written for specific audiences, mostly festivals where more than one play needs to be presented in an evening.  Choosing two plays that stand alone and yet work together is an art in itself.  Although each of these plays were interesting I am not sure that their juxtaposition worked.

Mantrap

This was an ‘out and out’ mystery play, although murder was intended, it never actually happens which makes it somewhat unsatisfactory from an audience perspective.  It was well cast and the characterisations were good. 

Attention to detail was not always there.  For example Josie (played by Charlotte Nobes) was, apparently, murdered and Trevor (played by Trevor Bavin) removed her body and took it elsewhere.  However, she had previously removed her boots and coat, leaving them on a chair.   Trevor failed to remove these items with the body and when she subsequently appeared (not having actually been killed) wearing said boots and coat it was an obvious mistake. 

Detective Constable Blake (played by Alison Seymour) should, clearly, have been played by a male as it is a threatening and seemingly violent character.  This just didn’t work with a female playing the part.  The cast was completed by Roy Llewellyn as Detective Inspector Talbot and a fleeting appearance by Director Lynne Bavin as Elizabeth.

Whodidit?

Where to start?  Well actually I just don’t know, I was so confused by the switches and changes, in who played what, that I spent more time trying to work that out than actually watching the play develop. 

This is type of play, generally referred to as Coarse Acting, was originally created by humourist Michael Green.  He describes a coarse actor as "one who can remember his lines, but not the order in which they come. One who performs ... amid lethal props..."   The problem is that many playwrights have written plays that incorporate the Coarse Acting premise for the whole play and this just doesn’t seem to work as well.  In this production the script seemed to call for everyone to be the funny man with no straight men to offset it.  Director Karen Barton pulled it off most of the time but it did descend into chaos at some points. 

The character names alone should give you warning of the type of play this was.   There were some strong performances notably from Maree Gaskin as the Housekeeper Mrs Meals, Mike Robertson as Detective Inspector Story, Kevin Hayes as Able Bonecrasher and Gerry Searle as both Constable Smart and Stableman.  The rest of the cast produced good performance but, overall, I felt they were working with dialogue that strained credibility and left them struggling for identity.  There were some good belly laughs and the costumes, especially the wigs, made for some light hearted moments.

So, an evening of two halves, very disparate in content and I am still not sure about the story in Whodidit!

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