Theatre
Aunt Dan and Lemon (Royal Court) Noises Off (Savoy)
Moral defeat
Christopher Edwards
This new piece, by the American writer and actor Wallace Shawn, is one in a series of generally fruitful exchanges between the Royal Court and the Joseph Papp Public Theatre in New York — with a slight difference in this case, namely that the work is actually opening in London before transferring to New York later in the autumn. The play seems calculated to deliver a shock to liberal sensibilities, and it will be interesting to see how many members of the New York audience leave the theatre asking one another whether he, the author, can actually mean what several of his characters appear to be saying in the play. Several discussions of this nature were taking place on the platform of Sloane Square Underground station after the curtain went down.
Key speeches that might provoke discus- sion include the passionate defence of the policies of Henry Kissinger by a diminutive American academic (Linda Hunt as Aunt Dan), and a teasingly funny reassessment of Nazi 'compassion' by an honest- sounding young woman with no ideological axe to grind (Kathryn Pogson as Lemon). As Wallace Shawn himself appears in the production, and knowing how New Yor- kers are supposed to pride themselves on their outspokenness, perhaps he will find himself under interrogation from the stalls when the work moves across the Atlantic.
No doubt such a response would delight the commercial playwright in Wallace Shawn, as much as it would surprise the Moralist in him. The intention behind the closing speech, and its sympathetic- sounding references to the Nazis as 're- freshing', is to show how far beyond the pale young Lemon has travelled under the formative influence of Aunt Dan. The play is designed to illustrate how private moral attitudes, developed perhaps through close friendships like the one between Lemon and Aunt Dan, mould opinions and con- duct in the public realm, and ultimately the future of the human race. This may not come as news to some, but it is the burden of the author's song. The play is a didactic piece with jokes, and in case there arc any lingering doubts about his position he provides an essay at the back of the programme entitled 'On the Context of the Play' which identifies a growing tendency in those of an urbane and social temper to lapse into a sort of moral subjectivism. But, he says: 'Privacy is an illusion. What I do is public, and what I think is public.' This is not a call to political mobilisation, but to treat people as ends, and to do unto them as you would have them do unto you.
In the opening scene we encounter Lemon, a frail 25-year-old living off veget- able juices, memories of her childhood, and books about the Nazis. She has had, she tells us, a great life on account of what she has learned from the people she knew. We go back to her childhood and the happy talks on sunny Oxford lawns be- tween Aunt Dan and her mother before Henry Kissinger came between them. The Kissinger line is well milked for laughter but the joke palls even before Aunt Dan's attachment starts to find expression in adoring hymns addressed to the heroism of his leadership. Which is no doubt all part of the author's intention, as Kissinger is buried in the course of being praised, but the Doctor remains with us for some time and Shawn is not adept at, or maybe not interested in, the creation of character through dialogue. Or indeed in dialogue at all although both Lemon and Aunt Dan emerge very clearly. He is interested in discursive and sometimes amusing mono- logues punctuated by the occasional brief scene giving us glimpses of the private conduct of Aunt Dan's admired, demi- monde associates. These figures, notably a venal good-time girl called Mindy, provide sensual and sensationalistic diversions. They represent the colourful, bad world of `good stories' that we love to hear and recycle, and to whose corrupt morality we ultimately succumb — as demonstrated in a pornographic scene between Mindy and a gangster at which Lemon and Aunt Dan are spotlighted as voyeuristic spectators and where we, expecting an even more explicit encounter, are surprised and perhaps thrilled to be given something more shocking.
It is unusual to find a 'discussion' piece of this sort on the London stage, especially one which, in the main, is so well acted and as artfully composed. I found it quite engaging while I was in my seat, but the stimulation of the work — both as theatre and as moral philosophy — had worn off by the time I had bought my Underground ticket.
In an otherwise quiet week I decided to visit Michael Frayn's long-running play Noises Off — a production that, for some reason, I have never seen. Despite a few longueurs it is a funny, fast-moving, slickly produced and superior kind of farce, with a second Act of brilliantly sustained inven- tion and speed. We encounter a rum cast of actors dress-rehearsing an even rummer pot-boiler comedy for a tour of the pro- vinces. In the course of Act I they are on `stage', trying desperately to remember their lines, learn the pieces of business and carry on their private love affairs behind the scenes. In Act II they are performing at Goole but our perspective has changed. The set has swivelled round and we watch them pursuing their private vendettas backstage at the same time as sustaining (just) a continuous performance for a matinee audience of bemused old-age pen- sioners. The comedy is one of exits and entrances, executed at high speed and with perfect timing, which builds a wave of hilarity that is sustained throughout the last Act when we are at the front of the house again, imagining the mayhem taking place behind the set. This is a highly polished execution of a beautifully simple idea, and offers a very worthwhile evening's distrac- tion.
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