Theatre
For real
Mark Amory
Children of a Lesser God (Mermaid) Loose Ends (Hampstead) Chapter Two (Lyric, Hammersmith) Plays about dwarves gain an extra impact because you know that when the lights come on the actor playing a dwarf will remain a dwarf. Children of a Lesser God, by Mark Medoff, has the same thing going for it, in a still more unsettling way if you are uninformed and cannot be sure which of the actors can hear. Trevor Eve, television's Eddie Shoestring, is a known quantity. As James Leeds he works with the deaf, falls for an initially rebellious student and marries her. In Act II they quarrel. 'Left of democrat, right of radical', James used to be in the Peace Corps, where he learned determination — 'The guy who taught the Ecuadorians to know and love brussels sprouts is not going to give up.' Though he knows a bit, he is our representative, making the mistakes and asking the questions which will lead to our being better informed. He also speaks both sides of conversations in sign language aloud, which, as his wife does not speak at all, makes for extended monologues. I imagine this is a convention, but it is tactfully handled and Eve gives a reassuring performance, stronger perhaps on charm than anguish, but not sentimental even when the words would allow it.
To call his part cliched would be unfair, indeed it comes across as pleasantly fresh; but stories about the handicapped from The Miracle Worker to Pygmalion are forced to share some plot points: the teacher (romance with, rebellion against), first public appearance, triumph, those left behind. The originality here lies with the girl Sarah. She does not wish to learn to lip read or speak. A childhood friend, Orin, has, and is working for equal job opportunities for the deaf. She sympathises, nearly joins him, but does not. Various explanations are offered. She will not do at all something she cannot do well, her way of communicating is in some ways better, if she cannot enter James's world of music, then he cannot enter her world of nothearing. James accepts this and says, 'I'll help you if you'll help me.' The play is on her side. It is clearly the whole point. I could not see it. Of course it is right to respect people's individuality, not to be patronising, not to force them to be like you, even to go along with their wrongheaded decisions about themselves if you love them. But why would she not have been better off if she could, when she wanted to, understand and reply? Elizabeth Quinn leaves us in no doubt of Sarah's determination and intelligence — she could do it if she wanted to. This is the sort of role that is overpraised and wins prizes; nevertheless she is very good in it, playing with a commitment and honesty that makes everyone else seem unreal.
The hero of Loose Ends has also been in the Peace Corps before the play begins, which it does in 1970. We follow Paul and Susan, a girl he met on a beach in Bali, through the decade, and the play aims to show us what the young were like. Again much of the plot is forced on the author, Mike Weller; his exemplary couple live together, get married, separate, divorce. Paul has modest ambitions but wants children; Susan expects more of her career and has not got the time. Their friends exhibit alternative attitudes. A hippie carpenter ends up in a suit, Paul's frightful, money-making brother has a heart attack, Susan's friend trades in a smug mystic for a conventional idiot. It sounds schematic but it is threaded together with skill, unobtrusive clues like a few snapshots in one scene, being picked up when Susan becomes a photographer. She says the trick is 'to know how much to show to suggest the whole thing'. Weller might have shown a bit more but what we do see is quietly interesting.
No room to say more of Chapter Two than that it is one of the best New York comedies by Neil Simon, the most successful playwright in the world. His technical skill is a pleasure to watch. The information about George, who still loves his dead wife, and Jenny, who does not mind waiting, is fed to us unobtrusively and covered by sharp gags. At the end of a charming telephone introduction, Jenny says, 'I took English. This is what they call repartee.' So it is, and if you feel that Maureen Lipman could handle a more serious side, remember that Simon could not, and be grateful.
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