Quartet

Quartet is a play by Ronald Harwood.  It is set in a retirement home and follows the story of four retired opera singers as they recount their former glories.  This production was the latest offering of Caerphilly Players.

This was a new venue for me.  The Vanguard Centre is an old church, and it lent itself well to this production with the large organ providing an imposing backdrop to the action.  As it was performed in a church, technical options were limited but this did not hamper the production.

The four performers worked well together.  As Reginald Paget, Terrance Marshman-Edwards had a nice character.  The audience got the feeling that he needed everything to be ‘just so’.  Debbie Harris had just the right amount of sass as Jean Horton.  Her character developed throughout the production, and we saw the vulnerable side to her character as time went on.  As Cissy Robinson, Anne Anderson was great fun.  She was bubbly and energetic, which the audience really fed off and as Wilfred Bond, Kev Birch had the chance to be very naughty.  His jokes and little asides had the audience laughing all evening.

With a small venue, it is sometimes assumed that everyone in the audience can hear everything and so the actors don’t need to try as hard to project their voices.  On occasion, the volume and diction of the performers did make the dialogue difficult to hear, and the pace did dip a little here and there, although I’m not sure how much of that was to do with how the play is written or just a few forgotten lines. The long breaks in the play, to allow for costume changes, also let the pace drop.

As always, my comments are designed to give societies and performers something to work on in the future and to keep striving to achieve the highest standards possible.

Thank you for your hospitality and I look forward to seeing you for Educating Rita shortly.

 

 

The views in this report are solely of the author.

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