Theatre
Two to forget
Kenneth Hurren
Unless you take an unusually humane interest in other people's misfortunes, there is absolutely no reason in the world why you should care that one more evening of my life ran down the drain last Friday, when I reported at the Mercury Theatre, Notting Hill Gate, for the accouchement of a work entitled To the Hot Toe and des cribed hopefully as a comedy with music." It was a little late in starting — due perhaps, to some feeling among the company of five that it would be improper to begin while they outnumbered the audience — but once the thing was under way it was quickly established that the performers had little to commend them beyond their supernaturally cheerful gameness; that the comedy (distantly related to Hellzapoppirt, but without the impudent confidence of that bygone bag of cornseed) would require a degree of indulgence such as it is given to few of us to offer; that the music was unlikely to progress beyond an occasional glum riff on the vibraphone; and that, despite a beguiling reference to some innocent form of foot fetishism, I, for one, would never be able to relate the action to the title.
The presentation was by a group called Bird in Hand. "founded in New York City in 1968." a circular had informed me, by Josephine Sacabd (who turned out to be the leading lady of the evening) and Dalt Wonk (the leading man and also the author) who was said to have been "nominated 'Best Playwright off-Off-Broadway' by Showbusiness newspaper." I wish I could say that I had been lured into the house by the promise implied in that intelligence, but in truth I have never heard of Showbusiness newspaper and I have a wariness, sharpened by experience, of anything acclaimed " off-Off-Broadway " I wish I could even say that I had gone in the hope of a bright subject in a dull week, in much the same spirit as others of my colleagues slogged out to Islington and Ealing and Guildford. Unfortunately, I have to forfeit any claim to the sympathy of even the tenderest hearts by admitting that my presence was an exercise in calculated masochism. I just wanted to run a test on an old theory that no matter how bad things may be in the West End, there is always something in the out-houses that is even worse.
Actually, I can't say this is true any more. To the Hot Toe, while plainly a waste of time for everyone fore and aft of the footlights (not that it has footlights), has an almost lovable incompetence, which is rather easier to bear than the infantile vulgarity and drivelling witlessness of, say, Pyjama Tops or The Dirtiest Show in Town or — to come to the immediate point — the new farce by Robin Hawdon at the Apollo, The Mating Game. The only discernible feature of inoffensive interest in this one is a penthouse set designed by Hutchinson Scott that is stiff with larkish push-button devices that afford sporadic diversion from the simple-minded behaviour of the human personnel. The piece is directed on the principle that if you keep a bunch of players — and in this case the scenery as well — in a state of constant physical activity, it may be possible to disguise the fact that nothing much, and certainly nothing funny, is happening. No acceptable proof of this principle has yet been offered, and indeed The Mating Game makes out a fair case for the contrary proposition that the higher the pitch of the empty vivacity displayed on the stage, the lower is the audience likely to be sunk in melancholia.
Hawdon solicits our jocular concern for the predicament of his hero, the host of a television chat show, represented at once• as catnip to women and as a reluctant virgin, incessantly frustrated in his devious manoeuvres to get girls into his bed. His secretary — instantly identifiable, despite her intimidating spectacles and prim demeanour, as the favourite to end his years of celibacy — is also a virgin, and it occurs to me that if you think that particular noun is a bit risque, even hilarious (Hawdon thinks it is both), you may be just the audience The Mating Game is looking for. Myself, I'm not sure that To the Hot Toe wouldn't have made better use of the set.
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