(seen at the afternoon performance on 19th February 2022)
From "The Frogs” of Aristophanes to the spawn of Jimmy Carr, making people laugh on stage is as much a science as an art form. The late, very great Ken Dodd always described laughter as a rainbow – the pure white of a child’s laughter at the top, down to the black of satire and of course blue humour.
This translation by Omar Elerian of Eugene Ionesco’s “The Chairs” is an opportunity for the intellectual exploration of pretty much every type of comedy Dodd’s rainbow suggests.
We open with overhearing a conversation “picked up accidentally” from backstage on a old radio cassette player suspended above the auditorium. Eventually persuaded to appear, the curtain rises on Old Woman (Kathryn Hunter) and Old Man (Marcello Magni) taking their seats on the titular wooden chairs.
They are attended (un)obtrusively by Speaker (Tony Sedgwick). As the need for props, cues and prompts arise, he assists the couple prepare for a party and speech. Guests arrive and are seated, conversations are held.
Over a non-stop hour and 45 minutes they give us physical humour, wordplay, misdirection, satire, juvenile and lavatorial, intellectual and absurdist and all points between.
It’s uneven. Elerian directs at a single speed, meaning that some sequences fly, others seem an eternity before the pace picks up again. Still, there is something very meaningful and significant in everything that takes place. It is almost like being a CERN scientist studying the Higgs-Boson particle. For those like the monkey, who have a lifelong fascination with comedy, the play reveals the very protons, neutrons and electrons of humour and the dark matter holding them together.
Hard going and as much intellectual exercise as outright laugh, Hunter, Magni and Sedgwick are both teachers and clowns, educating and entertaining by turn. Their ability to switch between comedic forms is on occasion quite breath-taking, a reminder that making an audience laugh is far more than a quip – it is bonding with them to produce an imaginary realm in which they believe before the laugh can take place. A single expression, pause or hand gesture then leads us where they would like us to follow, until a mis-direction releases another peal of laughter.
A few neat visual jokes and nice use of the space and possibilities by designers Cecile Tremolieres and Naomi Kuyck-Cohen enliven and enhance some sequences, and the monkey did wonder about the cost of chair rental by the end.
No barnstorming revelation of a play, but for sure one it will ponder for a long while. Interesting viewing and an outstanding delivery of the subject by the entire team. The sort of play rarely seen and which we can thank the Almeida for being brave enough to attempt.
3 stars.
Photo credit: Helen Murray. Used by kind permission of the Almeida Theatre.