Theatre

Krapp 39 and All I Want for Christmas: Two lives, poorly lived

Alan Hindle | Thursday 2 December, 2010 21:09

Alan Hindle illustration

Krapp 39, Tristan Bates Theatre 1A Tower St, WC2H 9NP 020 7240 6283 Until 22 Dec

All I Want for Christmas, Jermyn Street Theatre, 16b Jermyn St. SW1Y 6ST 020 7287 2875 Until 18 Dec

In Krapp 39, writer-actor Michael Lawrence tells a story about the time a friend cut them each two pieces of cake, a little one and a big one. He chose to eat the sliver and save the slab for a meaningful later.

The friend immediately gorged on hers, then probably had some more. She’s living a full and happy life. He still has that piece of cake wrapped up in a napkin.

Lawrence has thrown away his life, counting down the days until he is the right ages, 39 and 69, to take the leads in Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape. Spending his days wandering between psychotherapeutic whinges, snuffing out birthday candles by sucking the light into the pit of his existence. Today, a year shy of forty, he is finally ready to be Krapp.

While this is American therapy theatre, I doubt this guy is actually that neurotic, peering so deep into his navel he fell in and is today still treading his own miseryguts like quicksand. He’s too funny a performer for that. I’ve recently read in Richard Wiseman’s book Quirkology that comedians and clowns are actually quite well adjusted. (Clowns, it’s been shown are happier, healthier and live longer than everybody else. Despite the alcoholism and heroin and greasepaint poisoning. So buy yourself a red nose and start commuting your entire office in a G-Whiz. Just don’t hit any bumps because those things fold like a LibDem promise.) Life is theatre, but theatre is not life. Nor is it therapy. Events occurring between your first and last adventures in spelunking are only interesting if they entertain and resonate with an audience. Fortunately this production is rich in ideas and self-deprecating jokes and doesn’t sacrifice itself to the Great Theatrical God of the Carnivorous Bellybutton.

Clever use of a handheld video camera lets Lawrence keep his back to the audience while his face fills a flatscreen TV with intimate revelations. A carefully-arranged tableaux at the rear of the stage allows tailored, possibly occasionally improvised montages of photos and objects, illustrating his reflections. And his expressive hangdog po-face manages to be both poignant and funny. Even as he is taking himself way too seriously, his Droopy Dog mug lets us laugh and relax and absorb insightful ruminations on ageing and wasted opportunities. The only moments that don’t work, that fail painfully, are the “sudden realisations” when Lawrence breaks character to blurt out supposedly unexpected self-revelations. To have managed to create an environment in which he can ramble poetically a rehearsed script into a microphone and still make it seem in the moment- then pretend to yelp epiphanies- breaks the rules of this miniature, solipsistic universe and turns it into a scripted and mannered play. But only briefly. Then the horror of genuine honesty resumes. Thank Krapp.

Tony is a successful if high-strung business executive pulling £300 an hour but has nothing to spend it on. All he wants is a perfect Christmas with his adoring mum and roguish dad. So, naturally, he hires an outrageously untalented Russian actress and prostitute to play his girlfriend. Sitting round a blazing, Yule-time TV watching It’s A Wonderful Life, drinking sherry and ruthlessly demolishing gingerbread men. But Irena, who has her own dream of escaping her pimp Oleg and living a proper life may have a secret agenda of her own.

All I Want For Christmas bills itself as a black comedy, and a few strand of razor-sharp tinsel do decorate this skimpy tree. For much of it, however, only Andrew C Wadsworth as Tony’s lazy, lecherous, drunken dad Jack has any real fun.
In the last ten minutes, however, there is a genuine plot twist. I had to scramble and scrabble in my memory to find the foreshadowing. But it was there, cleverly alluded to and left simmering. Maybe not enough to be satisfying, but it’s fun to be surprised. Suddenly in the final scene we have the promised black comedy, and a good song, and all the characters become interesting. Rob Hughes as Tony turns dangerous, Irena played by Erica Guyatt gets depth and Jessica Martin as mum comes to life.

The last ten minutes! This lovely twist should have come halfway, or two thirds of the way in! Yes, the writers would have then needed to trump themselves again, but that’s just work and it seems a shame to have a jewel sunk into the last stodgy crumb of plum duff.

Hidden inside All I Want For Christmas is a bleak, twisted cracker. Charles Manson’s party hat. A plastic whistle audible only to vultures. But the sugary nostalgia icing is inches thick and the knife can’t quite reach.

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