Confusions ***

In addition to the American premiere of Alan Ayckbourn’s 79th play, “Hero’s Welcome,” 59E59’s Brits Off Broadway season is presenting his 17th play, actually an evening of five loosely connected short plays, which, although enormously popular in England, has somehow never reached our shores. Five of the six actors from “Hero’s Welcome” are back, playing 22 roles. 

In “Mother Figure,” Lucy (Elizabeth Boag) is a young mother whose  rarely at home traveling salesman husband Harry has left her alone with her three small children so long that she has forgotten how to relate to adults. When her not-so-happily married neighbors Rosemary (Charlotte Harwood) and Terry (Stephen Billington) pop in unexpectedly, she treats them as misbehaving children with amusing results.

In “Drinking Companion,” we meet the pathetic Harry (Richard Stacey) haplessly trying to pick up an attractive young woman Paula (Harwood) and/or her friend Bernice (Boag) in a hotel bar attended by a fey waiter (Billington).

“Between Mouthfuls” takes us to the hotel restaurant where the same waiter (Billington) is serving two tables, each with an unhappily married couple. At one table we have Martin (Stacey), a workaholic careerist and Polly (Harwood), his neglected wife just back from a Mediterranean holiday. At the other table are Martin’s boss Mr. Pearce (Russell Dixon) and his wife (Boag) who suspects him of infidelity on his recent business trip. The gimmick is that we hear only what the waiter hears. As he moves away from either table, we no longer hear that couple’s conversation. The dinner turns out badly for both couples, but entertainingly for us.

After intermission we get “Gosforth’s Fete,” the hilarious tale of a small town fair during which everything that can go wrong does. Gosforth (Dixon), the local big wheel, is frantically struggling with arrangements. When their distinguished guest Mrs. Pearce (Boag), the town councillor arrives, he asks the rather dim vicar (Stacey) to show her around. The village spinster Milly (Harwood) who is serving tea for the event announces to Gosforth that she is pregnant with his child. Since the malfunctioning PA system has mysteriously sprung to life, her announcement is heard by all assembled including her scoutmaster fiance Stewart (Billington). More mayhem follows.  The actors get ample opportunity to demonstrate their superb timing and talent for physical humor.

The final piece, “A Talk in the Park,” brings the evening to a melancholy close. Five lonely people play a game of musical chairs on four park benches, each one changing benches to escape an unwanted conversation only to drive the next benchmate to similarly distraction. 

The first two plays run on a bit too long after making their point. The plays that precede and follow intermission are the most entertaining. For me the dry patches were more than compensated by the hilarious moments. 

The creative team is the same as for “Hero’s Welcome.” For details, see that review (http://bobs-theater-blog.blogspot.com/2016/05/heros-welcome.html).

They announced a running time of two hours including intermission, but it actually ran 2 hours 25 minutes.

Hero's Welcome ***

The annual Brits Off Broadway season is back at 59E59 Theatre. The prodigiously prolific Alan Ayckbourn is represented by the U.S. premiere of his 79th play as well as an evening of older short plays which I will review next week.. One of the pleasures of an Ayckbourn season is becoming reacquainted with fine actors who have appeared in previous seasons. This year three actors who graced the 2014 season have returned. Richard Stacey plays Murray, an acclaimed military hero whose return to his home town after 17 years wreaks general havoc. Elizabeth Boag plays Alice, the town’s mayor, whom Murray jilted at the altar. Russell Dixon is her much older husband Derek, a model train fanatic. They are joined by two other stalwarts of the Stephen Joseph Theatre (SJT) of Scarborough, Ayckbourn’s artistic home — Charlotte Harwood doubling as Kara, the abused wife of Murray’s old friend Brad and as Simone, her daughter, and Evelyn Hoskins as Madrababacascabuna (Baba), the young war bride Murray has brought home. Stephen Billington, although an apparent newcomer to SJT, fits in seamlessly as the toxic Brad. Murray’s return is not welcomed by those he upset long ago; nor is his plan to remodel and reopen the pub once owned by his father but now the property of the town council and a candidate for demolition. Past events are explained more fully in a way that generates compassion for the characters. Designer Michael Holt’s set design, greatly assisted by Jason Taylor’s excellent lighting, delineates four distinct areas — a BBC studio, the living room of a mansion, a generic hotel room and a large kitchen with a model train running through it. The play is plot-heavy and would benefit from a bit of tightening. While it does not represent Ayckbourn at his best, it nevertheless offers much to enjoy. As is his custom, the playwright directed. Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes including intermission.

Ayckbourn Ensemble ****

All praise to the folks at the Brits off Broadway festival at 59E59 Theater for bringing us three works by Alan Ayckbourn (two world premieres and a New York premiere) performed in repertory by a superb ensemble of 11 actors from the Stephen Joseph Theatre of Scarborough, the company that Ayckbourn directed for 37 years. I know that I have said on other occasions that playwrights should not direct their own plays, but I hereby make a notable exception for Ayckbourn. After working with a core of the same actors for many years, he knows how to get exactly the right tone from them. I have seen other productions that were marred by overemphatic acting either allowed or encouraged by their directors. 

Farcicals ***

Realizing that only 7 of the 11 actors appeared in both the other plays, Ayckbourn whipped up a pair of one-act farces for the remaining four. “Chloe with Love” and “The Kidderminster Affair” share the same characters, two rather mismatched couples — Penny (Elizabeth Boag) and Reggie (Kim Wall) plus Teddy (Bill Champion) and Lottie (Sarah Stanley). The first shows Lottie’s hilarious attempts to stoke her husband’s interest. The latter describes a hysterical attempt to hide an adulterous indiscretion. Both are sheer froth, but the word play and physical humor in the second play rise to a high level of inspiration. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes including intermission.

Playing with time and space is a frequent feature of Ayckbourn’s work. We see it again here, both in “Time of My Life” from 1992 and “Arrivals and Departures,” his new play (#76). 

Time of My Life ***

We meet the Stratton family, parents Gerry (Russell Dixon) and Laura (Sarah Parks), their elder son Glyn (Richard Stacey) and his wife Stephanie (Emily Pithon), who have just recently reconciled after a separation, and their younger son Adam (James Powell) and his new girlfriend Maureen (Rachel Caffrey) as they gather at the family’s favorite restaurant, a vaguely Middle Eastern place, for a boozy celebration of Laura’s birthday. After the initial party scene, the play fractures into three strands: we follow Gerry and Laura as they remain at the restaurant, we move a year or two into the future with Glyn and Stephanie, and we go backwards in time with Adam and Maureen to their first meeting. All the action takes place in the restaurant. An added touch is that one actor (Ben Porter) plays the restaurant’s owner and all its diverse waiters. We end up where we started as the birthday party begins. It sounds gimmicky, but it works surprisingly well except for a scene in the second act that goes on much too long. The play’s theme seems to be “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.” Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes including intermission.

Arrivals and Departures ***

This new play is deliberately less comic than the others. It combines a satiric look at bureaucratic ineptitude with the recollections of two disparate characters, each of whom has been subject to betrayal. A military special forces group led by Quentin (Bill Champion) has concocted a hare-brained scheme to catch a terrorist at a rail terminal in London. Disguised as ordinary people, the group ineptly rehearse their roles before the train arrives. Ez, short for Esme, (Elizabeth Boag) a sullen soldier who is awaiting court martial, is assigned to babysit a chatty older man, Barry (Kim Wall), a traffic warden from Yorkshire who can possibly confirm the suspect’s identity. Awaiting the train’s arrival, Ez looks back on the personal history that has turned her into an edgy, mistrustful person. Much of the second act is a mirror image of the first, except that this time it is Barry who reminisces about his unhappy past. The plan to capture the terrorist does not end happily. I found the ending a bit jarring. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes including intermission.

The ensemble is so uniformly fine that it almost seems unfair to single out anyone. Nevertheless, I will mention that Boag, Champion, Parks, Porter and Wall made especially strong impressions. Jan Bee Brown's set designs for all three plays are simple but effective. 

You may wonder why I rated Ayckbourn Ensemble higher than any of its components. In this case the whole IS greater than the sum of its parts. Seeing the three pieces together in one day increased my admiration of the playwright/director and the superb ensemble cast.