University of Adelaide Theatre Guild. The Little Theatre. 2 Aug 2014
A rare production of a 70s Pinter play with some of the landmark names of South Australian theatre behind it. This Theatre Guild show is a hot ticket.
‘No Man's Land’, most particularly, is a vehicle for two very strong mature actors - to which end Michael Baldwin and John Edge come into their own. They are Adelaide's Gielgud and Richardson.
Director Warwick Cooper cast Baldwin as the parasitic lost soul of a poet, Spooner and Edge as the liquor-sodden celebrated man of letters, Hirst. Hirst, one believes, has brought Spooner to his Hampstead home for a drink after meeting at a local pub.
Garrulous Spooner is sycophantically grateful for Hirst's hospitality and the two men solidly hit the bottle. Spooner indulges in egocentric banter and Hirst steadily drinks until, taunted, he stands, throws his glass, falls down drunk and crawls off stage - in this case, right up the stairs of the little Theatre. It is quite a scene and, one is tempted to applaud as Edge makes it to the top.
The delicious contrasts and tensions of the play devolve from Hirst's caretakers - two very dubious Cockney retainers. Foster is his "secretary", educated, well-travelled and rather highly strung. Briggs is the tough guy manservant. Both are dedicated to their employer's wellbeing but also bristle with an implicit relationship of their own. They not only add a sense of threat to the play but a new degree of humour which Warwick Cooper has upped to the hilt.
He has Matt Houston play Foster not just as the "neurotic poof" Briggs namecalls him but as a screaming, off-the-wall nutcase. Foster enters dressed as a pseudo hippie and swiftly hits the decibels with high-camp histrionics. In the confines of The Little Theatre, it's enough to waken the dead. One can't imagine the distinguished old writer living with such a loon. When he rocks up in Act II, dressed in billowing plus-fours and a cap so strident that it dominates the stage, one just wonders why.
Perhaps it is for added laughs.
The actors play for laughs - none getting more than Jonathan Pheasant as Briggs. He is a joy. A wonderful performance.
As for the two oldies, one can just tip the proverbial. Baldwin is pathos and bathos as the conniving and needy Spooner. Edge is dissolute elegance as Hirst.
Between them, as the play evolves through the booze-haze night and into the strange next morning, there are verbal thrusts and parries which spark - and moments of immense sorrow and puzzlement. We are never to be quite sure if Hirst is fully on the amnesiac alcoholic skids or if, perhaps, the two men have a history.
The play intends to confuse, as it intends to amuse.
And, of course, it is a wonderment of words and timing - an actors' play. In the Guild's hands, it is utterly engrossing and surprisingly funny.
Also, with the deft skills of designer Max Mastrosavas, it is exquisitely aesthetic. From floor to ceiling, The Little Theatre become a Hampstead literary den, long red bordello curtains stretching to the floor, flanked by massive portraits of great playwrights which obscure the mezzanine completely. The proscenium is blocked by many bookcases full of old books. There is handsome wooden chest for the liquor and glasses and well-placed writing desk, chairs and lamps creating a cosy sense of affluence.
With good lighting from Joe Sperenini and sound from Gavin O'Loughlen, ‘No Man's Land’ goes down as another vivid feather in the UATG's very well-adorned cap.
Samela Harris
When: 2 to 16 Aug
Where: The Little Theatre
Bookings: adelaide.edu.au/theatreguild
