Photos

In Rehearsal

Cast

Croydon Advertsier Review

22 June 2009

Theo Spring

The suspicions in this psychological drama start almost straight away as Mary returns home unexpectedly to find three people in her house whom she does not recognise, but who tell her they are her husband, cousin and sister.

Is her mind deranged from the air crash she has just experienced, which is why she has come home and is not in America? Who are they and what do they want?

Under the direction of Gail Bishop the cast, who go on to include a doctor and the police, slowly tightened the growing tension in spite of a script which does have one or two holes in it. Not having the benefit of the book in front of me I could not work out why, when a terrified Mary was running from her tooled-up evil cousin, instead of hiding behind the sitting room curtains, she didn't just get out of the ground floor window to freedom. That it was probably just a revision of their childhood games of hide and seek does come to light but it is not playwright Terence Feely's finest hour.

The set design by Tony Neale and Gail Bishop was very good, particularly the stability of the aforementioned curtains and Jenny Kingman's large portrait of 'Jack'.

Karen West had her ups and downs as Mary, doing particularly well when threatened with acid on her face but less convincing that she had just survived her plane's burning engines.

Steve Boxall was solid and believable as her 'husband' Jack, keeping everyone calm, particularly in the face of awkward questions from Detective Sergeant Robbins ably played by Sharron Cox.

The sadistic tendencies of 'cousin Peter' were a little overdrawn by Nigel Kemp although he introduced them slowly, thus building more tension. Jill Poulloin was friendly and familiar as Mary's 'sister' Stella, changing her character suitably when it looked as though the three of them were about to succeed in their plot to steal a large amount of money.

Having succeeded in getting the police to attend, Mary is also able to summon her doctor played with a fine bedside manner and excellent hypnotic powers by Reg Anderson.

John Tough adds a small cameo role as Chief Inspector Gale, appearing just in time to aide the revelation of whose mind games had been the most successful.

Transposing a play first performed in 1979 to the present worked in that it allowed for a female Detective Sergeant (with, I felt, inappropriate shoes) but some costumes looked old fashioned - particularly Mary's and Gale's, and the sitting room phone would surely have been a cord-free. Phones bring on another trap too - in the present day we have mobiles!