Pitlochry Festival Theatre
Four stars
“I am tired of being lady-like,” determines school-teacher
spinster Phoebe Throssel to her sister Susan in the second act of J.M. Barrie’s
neglected early play, revived here by Liz Carruthers in suitably chocolate box
fashion. Such wilful reinvention is born of wisdom and experience after Phoebe
effectively buried her fun-loving self a decade earlier when handsome himbo
Valentine Brown swanned off to the Napoleonic war. Now, Valentine has breezed
back into town, and, uniform notwithstanding, Phoebe wants a piece of the
action a non-military intervention should have provided her with years ago. Cue
an elaborate conceit that unveils her hidden party girl.
Set on designer Adrian Rees’ circular blue and white
room – a kind of chill-out sanctuary where the sisters hold court before
turning it into a school – Carruthers’ production is a deceptively frothy confection
with subtle depths lurking beneath the surface. As ever with Barrie, the
separation anxieties of war loom large, as do keeping hold of or rediscovering
the child within in the face of more grown-up stuff.
To offset some of the play’s period foibles,
Carruthers and co take full advantage of the ornate elaborations of the play’s
stage directions. Such detailed florid flourishes allow them to be rendered by
the gaggle of society belles who make up the nosiest of Greek choruses
alongside Helen Logan’s cheeky maid Patty.
As the central trio, Fiona Wood as Phoebe, Camrie
Palmer as Susan and Alan Mirren as Valentine run giddy rings around each other
as Wood makes a metamorphosis from a skittish Phoebe of the ringlets to bookish
schoolmarm and back. What on earth Phoebe sees in a bloke so dim he takes a
decade to realise she fancies him is the real mystery here in an otherwise pithy
rom-com designed to please.
The Herald, June 18th 2018
ends
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