I sometimes wonder whether the Bartholomew Players will ever stage Ibsen’s The Master Builder – not so much for its content but for its title, which is so appropriately descriptive. It really does seem that this small village dramatic society constructs and furnishes a whole house every time it puts on a play in the village hall for a four-night run. It is emblematic of the amount of time, effort and expertise that is dedicated to each of their dramatic productions.
As the curtain went up on the dress rehearsal of Ayckbourn’s Absent Friends, there were delighted gasps of recognition at details of the elaborately recreated interior of a 1970s house and its inhabitants in all their garish 1970s glory - espadrilles, macramé, lava lamps and all. Even the plastic carrier bags carried accurate recreations of the 1970s versions of department store logos.
In this house, we meet an ill-assorted trio of wives, gathered together to welcome back their husbands’ old pal Colin, whose fiancée Carol has recently drowned. The plan is to provide Colin with solace over a comforting dose of tea and sympathy, reuniting him with the friends of his youth.
The reunion, however, does not go to plan. Far from needing his friends’ support, Colin bounces back into their lives blithely (and wrongly) confident that he can diagnose and fix their own problems. He himself is – by comparison - blissfully happy: as she had had the good fortune to drown while their life, love and future were still rosy, Carol’s charms have not been tarnished by the passage of time and habituation, and she is perfectly preserved in his memory as hallowed pictures in a holiday romance photo album. Carol has been a delightful albeit fleeting catalyst transforming his attitude to life; and, similarly, Colin (played with light-footed buoyancy by Nick Smith) acts as an even swifter catalyst for his friends, unwittingly crystallising what was previously muddled and murky.
The motley collection of characters in this dark comedy were all portrayed brilliantly, in excruciatingly comic detail. Louise Taney was moving and compelling as Diana, the warm, unfulfilled woman whose colourful childhood dreams have been displaced by typing and tea parties. Elaine Leggett was painfully hilarious, spluttering her tea and squirming with embarrassment at her repeated social gaffes, as the simple, good-hearted, childless woman condemned to live as “Nurse Marge”, fussing over the needy outsize toddler of a husband we never see but can picture in all too gruesome detail. Alex Reid excelled as the charmless, cynical, laconic young mother Evelyn, chewing gum in the corner. Her blunt, uncensored and usually monosyllabic comments drew explosive unexpected laughter from the audience as if by psychological Heimlich manoeuvre. She came across almost as a sort of teenage version of Dandy Nichols’ contemporaneous Else Garnett character. Chris Carson effortlessly evoked a delicate combination of compassion and cringe as the hapless, restless, well-meaning but spineless John, despised by his young wife; and Ianto Wain ably represented the combination of male power and weakness in the successful nouveau riche businessman who might revel in his ability to “play away” but uses discussion of cars and football scores to evade meaningful emotional interaction.
Alan Ayckbourn is known for setting himself playwriting challenges – such as a play whose five acts can be performed in any order. Who would guess that Absent Friends was written in a single day? Its action also takes place in a single day, in fact in real time. It has been described as a play in which nothing happens; but you will have to see for yourselves whether you agree with that.
Asked if this play had dated since it was written (1974 – now 50 years ago), Ayckbourn replied “Human nature doesn’t change. We just adopt different hair styles.” You will have to see for yourselves whether you agree with that, too. Personally, I hope we have moved on a little, in some ways. (But it is true about the hair styles!)