Season's Greetings

As the play began the audience was immediately drawn into this family home by a most attractive set depicting three rooms -  the dining room, sitting room and a hall with a staircase that went up and around, and of course a beautiful Christmas tree.  It is impressive to see a set this well designed on a small stage.  Having a good height to the staircase rather than just two or three steps made setting some scenes much more realistic.   The party celebrating the festivities was a mix of friends and family and the result so disastrous one wonders whose idea it was to get together in the first place!  This was the perfect play to get everyone laughing.  Misunderstandings, flashes of temper and frustration, drunken fumblings between those who shouldn't be, boring puppet shows, this play has it all.

Season's Greetings has a cast of five men and four women, not always easy for a small society to achieve.  Salterton Drama was able to cast from amongst its members.  Many different personalities made up this house party, the bully, the downtrodden, the martyr, the fussy, the bore, to name a few, so there was a great deal of scope for the directors and cast to explore and interpret these traits.  The casting was right for ages and strong, each actor became the person they were playing.  There was no reticence, the performances were bold but also the balance was right, no one went too far.  Diction was good and certainly from where I was sitting hearing the dialogue was easy.

The set, as mentioned was of three rooms, split by token low partitions.  The actors moved from room to room in a natural way and behaved as if they were indeed in separate rooms.  Also when entering from the kitchen or the front door it did feel as if that was indeed what they were doing, not standing in the wings!

The costumes were good.  Some really dressed up for Christmas Day in high heels and party clothing, others did not, it was just like the average family gathering.

Lighting and sound were in very capable hands and they needed to be.   There are many sound effects and lighting cues and they were all on time keeping the feeling of reality strong.  One strength of this society is that they have young actors who are also very happy to be involved on the technical side.

So much is going on with this story.  Lives are being changed and not for the better and then suddenly the play ends.  It took the audience a little by surprise, it still had our whole attention - we would have loved to know what happened next - a sign of a good story.   This was a very good choice for a December play.  It was much appreciated by the audience who spent the evening laughing and went out into the dark and rainy night in a most cheerful mood.

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