Theatre
The Sneeze (Aldwych)
Sugar Babies
(Savoy).
The charm of vaudeville
Christopher Edwards
Here are eight short pieces adapted by Michael Frayn from plays and stories by Anton Chekhov. Suddenly, and not for the first time, Frayn has made available to us new works by Chekhov. Whether as trans- lator (the four last great plays), creative collaborator (his excellent Wild Honey), or, as here, in the role of adaptor, Michael Frayn's contribution to a modern apprecia- tion of Chekhov has been enormous and distinguished.
'I don't like the theatre,' Chekhov wrote to one friend (to another he spoke more vehemently of modern theatre as the venereal disease of the cities), '1 quickly get bored — but I do like watching vaudevilles.' These pieces are vaudevilles — light works that Chekhov dashed off at great speed and which he seemed, perhaps disingenuously, to disparage. He called them piffling and mangy. More accurately, he described them as 'jokes' — a term for which the usual and misleading English translation is 'farce'. Brian Rix in his trouserless, panic-stricken genre will be on display next week. These pieces have nothing in common with that idea of farce. As Frayn points out, what typically drives these characters is a sense of outrage at the failure of others to recognise their claims to status, money or land.
The_ first piece, Drama, satirises an amateur female playwright (Cheryl Camp- bell) buttonholing a famous writer and subjecting him to gushing extracts from her deadly work. Here, as so often throughout the evening, an amusing text is given even greater comic life by the contortions and grimaces of Rowan Atkinson. He is the undoubted star of the show, and appears in seven of the eight pieces. So, if you are an admirer of his talents, this production will hold a special appeal. But even if you find him a mannered and predictable comedian when on television, I would not let that put you off this production. This is a real display of virtuosity. His subtle solo per- formance in The Evils of Tobacco, where he plays a downtrodden husband and teacher, is desolately funny in the best Chekhovian vein. He also demonstrates his considerable comic range by switching, immediately, to the role of shrewd peasant driving a vain Inspector General (Timothy West) to his village. Both writing and acting combine brilliantly to expose the pretensions of an official who thinks he has pulled a fast one on the locals by arriving incognito.
Of the rest, The Bear stands out. A noisy boor arrives to claim a debt from an affected young widow, and ends up pro- posing to her. The comedy is broad and over the top, but a gift to talented actors like Timothy West and Cheryl Campbell. This, incidentally, was the piece that estab- lished Chekhov as one of the leading boulevard playwrights of his day, a thought that is slightly hard to absorb when you consider the masterpieces that followed.
Perhaps most poignant of all is Swan Song,' about a 68-year-old actor (Timothy West) addressing an empty theatre at night and complaining how his talents were never truly appreciated. After he has intoned a few extracts from Lear and Othello, we hear an iron door clang deep in the recesses of the building. A stillness momentarily descends. It is with suggestive and mood-shaping touches like this that we identify the later, greater artist who wrote The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard.
After seven years on Broadway and one in Australia, Sugar Babies arrives at the Savoy. It is a (slightly) updated form of old-time burlesque with a staple diet of pretty chorus girls, sentimental songs and a relentless barrage of hoary old good/bad sex jokes. Some are still funny, others are wincingly awful. The main attraction of the evening is the appearance of Mickey Rooney and Anne Miller, old stars both and still amazingly full of energy. She still has the legs of a 17-year-old and tapdances with grace and elegance. Rooney, short and tubby, part cherub, part pug, has the commanding presence of a true star. Even when the material is thin (which is quite often) his mixture of charm and sheer will carries it off. I suppose the appeal of the show lies in its raucous belly laughs and in the chance it gives you of seeing two grand old stars in action. But the turn that everyone keeps talking about is the hila- rious, self-deprecating but incredibly skil- ful juggling act by Michael Davis.
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