Alan Ayckbourn is famous for placing a world
of trouble on the shoulders of his hapless characters, then pulling the rug out
from under them—mind you, in high comic style. The Nora Theatre’s
ABSURD PERSON SINGULAR (playing at the Central Square Theater through August 18th),
superbly directed by Daniel Gidron, reminded me of the deftness Harold Lloyd
achieved in his comic catastrophes.
We meet three couples, whose kitchens will be
both refuge and madhouse on three successive Christmas eves. One kitchen
wanderer from the first party declares the living room guests to be “splendidly
jolly, booming people” and you immediately know the opposite is true. But you
don’t see the disaster first hand. Better yet is the glimpse of what’s going on
behind the festivities: panic, mayhem and meltdown.
The cast is pure joy, with David Berger-Jones
as the hilariously obtuse host of the first party and Samantha Evans
deliciously infuriating as the overwrought, reluctant hostess. The first act
does the work of setting up, with Liz Hayes wonderfully off kilter as the
wacky, inebriated wife of Bill Mootos’ marvelously unrepentant philanderer. Add
the wry Steve Barkhimer as an uninterested banker who’d rather be anywhere else
and Stephanie Clayman as his tart tongued wife (her words fairly dripping with
sophisticated sarcasm) and you have the sure fire recipe for comic gold.
If only Act II could be played twice, thrice
even. I could see it a hundred times, just to watch Liz Hayes fume, despair,
roll her eyes up into her head or move her pupils to the side in horror and
then, widen them in disbelief. Her tour de force, without speaking a word, is
the funniest performance I’ve seen this year. You cannot stop laughing and yet
you care about this poor woman, surrounded by morons.
Gidron knows how to gild the lily, so
everyone gets into the act. There’s an Edward Scissorhands-Mootos moment, not
to mention Barkhimer’s leap to safety on top of the kitchen table…where, of course,
he isn’t, which is simply priceless when all hell breaks loose. Act III gives
Clayman the splendid chance to run roughshod over her visitors, especially
Mootos, squashed like a cushion into an easy chair.
Ayckbourn has written over seventy plays, all
of them gems. Maybe Nora could do one a year for the next decade or so. That
would make me deliriously happy.