26 FEBRUARY 1983, Page 32

Theatre

Problem solving

Giles Gordon

The Bacchae (Orange Tree, Richmond) Care (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs) Piero Plays His Part (Polka, Wimbledon)

Peter Arnott's new and unrhetorical translation of Euripedes's The Bacchae can be played, almost, as situation tragedy. Anthony Cornish's clearly spoken produc- tion — the translation's British premiere proves to be more about local than Olym- pian matters; which, for me, makes the foibles of the gods easier to pay attention to than usual. I've never found this, theoretically, most passionate of the Greek tragedies a raging bull of a play, the senses versus cynicism.

The arrogant, good-looking Dionysus (William Hoyland, armed with what ap- peared to be a genuine Bacchanalian lovebite on his neck) is, simply, pissed off that the Theban bosses won't put ivy in their hair and worship him as the people do. Pentheus (Peter Guinness) is so attractive in drag it's mildly surprising Agave, his mother (Valerie Sarruf), does for him.

The costumes are Ruralist, the electronic music is extremely loud and sounds especially when Bacchus appears to be com- ing through the ceiling — as if the un- acknowledged composer had had too much retsina. Robin Hooper as Teiresias and as the messenger, and Heather Baskerville and Sarah Keller as the chorus, do well.

The full house at the matinee I attended, and the demeanour of the, mainly, elderly audience made it clear that Richmond is hungry for Greek tragedy. Your reviewer, being classically ill-educated, always finds these masterpieces problematic. The show- biz versions mounted by the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre in the last few years disguised the nature of the problem. To me, it's like the difference between looking at paintings and sculpture. Like going to church, you feel vaguely better for the experience, or think you should. The Greek plays just don't' seem, in performance, to have much to do with anything. Peter Arnott's colloquial translation of The Bacchae has to be a step in the right direction.

In Care, the baby isn't stoned in its pram, it's deposited by its daddy in a black plastic bag in the dustbin. The spirit of Edward Bond lives at the Royal Court (Osborne too: there's a kitchen sink on stage), whereas what Roy Mitchell's first stage play — more a social worker's case study — cries out for, in the early scenes, is the imagina- tion of a Pinter and, in the final scenes, the biting ironies and artful insights of an Or- ton. As it is, not a laugh, nervous or other- wise, is heard as the parents conspire to kill their baby and the deed is done. The utterly depressing events on stage more or less fail to move. There's no distancing, no dramatist's response to the material presented.

Terry (Peter-Hugo Daly) and Cheryl (Gwyneth Strong) married at 17. They live in a nice enough flat in Birmingham and have a 26-inch telly. The baby, which is taken, rather than seen or said, to be hor- ribly abnormal, is kept in a closet, and thrown a sausage and fried bread rejected by Terry and extracted from the fireplace by Cheryl. It's arguable whether the child has stunted the relationship between its parents more than their uninspired and uninspiring relationship has mucked up the poor infant. It is only when Cheryl becomes pregnant again that she and Terry summon up the courage — more that than despair — to kill the vegetable, to clear the decks as it were, prepare for a new beginning.

If there is any hope or inspiration in the play it is that a second, normal child should help the couple to grow together. For Cheryl is anxious for the love which her slack-jawed, illiterate, Beano-reading, football-watching, beer-gurgling Terry has been unable to learn to give. All the acting is good, and Antonia Bird directs as if social realism is what art's about.

Richard Gill's Polka Children's Theatre is a treasure house for the young. It is in its last few performances of Piero Plays His Part by Peri Aston, a delightful rendering of, in effect, the origins of Commedia dell' Arte. It is intended for children aged five to eight.

A group of travelling actors in sunny Ita- ly encounter, in a village where they're short of an actor, young Piero (a versatile Marek Sliwifiski). His services are com- andeered and he, too shy to speak in his own persona, couldn't be more articulate and extrovert than he becomes as Captain Courageo who woos and wins Pantaleone's daughter, and as Mr Pulcinella whom he doubles.

The set and costumes are colourful, and the young audience took pleasure in seeing how the same pieces of scenery can repre- sent, in turn, the front of a house, a street, the interior of a house. They see how ac- tors, with the assistance of masks, become different characters. (And girls will observe that the actresses are not allowed faces other than their own.) Finally, they see how Pierrot acquired his make-up. The show, which couldn't be more professional, runs for just over an hour. There should be an interval, as the younger children lost their concentration before the end. The next play at the Polka, Smash and Grab, runs throughout March. It's for six- to eleven-year-olds. As well as a pretty, purpose-built theatre, the building accom- modates a museum of toys and puppets and a playground with a Wendy house. The cafeteria serves home bakes and pies (closer to Sweeney Todd than Walls) which may be eaten in a festival train designed, as is the current play, by Jenifer Wyatt.