Theatre review: Les Parents Terribles
Last up in the Donmar Trafalgar directors' showcase is Chris Rolls, directing Cocteau's Les Parents Terribles. For the second night in a row for me it's a tragicomedy and where Rolls best displays his abilities is in the way he balances the play's wild lurches from farce to tragedy. He's got an experienced cast to help him with this: Frances Barber is Yvonne, the drama queen of a mother with pretensions to a bourgeois life she can't afford and an Oedipal obsession with her son Michael (Tom Byam Shaw, who's got a bit of the Nick Stahl about him.) She's about to be given the terrifying news that Michael's fallen in love with Madeleine (Elaine Cassidy) and freaks out at the thought of having to share her son's affections. But Madeleine also has a secret that involves Yvonne's husband George (Anthony Calf) and which sets up a cycle of deceit straight out of classic farce - as the characters themselves comment on in a bit of a postmodern scene.
The play functions as a farce in its own right but has a lot more to say than it first appears to - trying to sort out the muddles results in heartbreak for Madeleine that the production doesn't shy away from. Andrew D Edwards has designed a mirrored set that magnifies what is already a heightened sense of drama and as we go from big laughs to overwrought grief, the result is an experience that always threatens to bubble over into hysteria. So it's very, well, French. It's the comedy that most stands out though and there's never too long a lull before the laughs come again. The play gives all five of its actors a chance to stand out but after the interval the show undoubtedly belongs to Sylvestra Le Touzel as Yvonne's pragmatic sister Leo, the delivery of every dry line and the tiniest movement is timed to perfection.
Les Parents Terribles by Jean Cocteau, translated by Jeremy Sams is booking until the 18th of December at Trafalgar Studio 2.
The play functions as a farce in its own right but has a lot more to say than it first appears to - trying to sort out the muddles results in heartbreak for Madeleine that the production doesn't shy away from. Andrew D Edwards has designed a mirrored set that magnifies what is already a heightened sense of drama and as we go from big laughs to overwrought grief, the result is an experience that always threatens to bubble over into hysteria. So it's very, well, French. It's the comedy that most stands out though and there's never too long a lull before the laughs come again. The play gives all five of its actors a chance to stand out but after the interval the show undoubtedly belongs to Sylvestra Le Touzel as Yvonne's pragmatic sister Leo, the delivery of every dry line and the tiniest movement is timed to perfection.
Les Parents Terribles by Jean Cocteau, translated by Jeremy Sams is booking until the 18th of December at Trafalgar Studio 2.