Jack Studio Theatre – until 4 March 2023
Reviewed by Claire Roderick
4****
Olive & Stavros bring The Play with Speeches back to the Jack Studio for a welcome second run. In the gloriously funny play, actors auditioning for a play must audition in front of a paying audience thanks to a booking mix up. This becomes more ridiculous as this romantic/medical/legal melodramatic mess is played out on the set of The Importance of Being Earnest and “writer” Anthony – with a TH, not a T – has constructed his play out of a sequence of audition speeches, so there’s lots fun to be had with OTT writing and acting styles.
As the audience file in, director Penny (Katherine Reilly), writer Anthony (Matthew Parker) and assistant Nick (Jumaane Brown) are setting up for auditions for their new play with frantic nervous glances at the audience. Anthony’s initial awkwardness explaining and introducing each speech soon disappears as his (not so hidden) diva emerges and he reveals personal details of his failed relationship with Penny. At first their reactions are the personification of head versus heart, but Penny’s professional, detached attitude gives way to exasperation as an increasingly showy Anthony goes too far, describing disastrous dates and fights.
Between the squabbles, the auditioning actors file in and add extra ammunition in Anthony and Penny’s battle for control, with some dropping hints that Penny has tweaked Anthony’s script. James Woolf has added a few tweaks himself that work brilliantly – a smaller cast allows multiple auditions from some persistent auditionees, and some wonderfully silly audience participation straight out of The Generation Game adds to the controlled chaos guided skilfully by co-directors Katherine Reilly and Ursula Campbell.
Mark Parsons, Mayuresh Mishra, Anna Blackburn, Camilia O’Grady, Ursula Campbell and Michael Perlmutter all nail the comedic intensity of their auditions, but it is the reactions of Parker and Reilly, and the auditionees own responses that create the magic moments. Reilly is wonderfully bored and calmly frustrated as Parker’s Anthony devolves from a self-important fool into a flamboyant, pitiful mess milking every tragi-comic moment in a fantastic performance. The entrance of Lionel (Perlmutter), smooth, talented and successful with the ladies – the Anti-Anthony – changes the tone for a while, but there are still big laughs to be had from the “tragic” ending. Fantastic fun with stellar performances.