Steve On Broadway (SOB)

Brief Encounter (The SOB Review)

Rice's ingenious adaptation of Noël Coward's screenplay cleverly punctuates live action -- often breaking the fourth wall -- with some of Coward's signature tunes. Before the show even begins, Rice sets the mood as her supporting players are out in the orchestra section of the theatre, serenading the audience as it playfully interacts with them as movie theater ushers from a bygone era. However, what they're really ushering in, quite simultaneously, are two distinct eras.

The first era harkens back to that pre-World War II time when Coward was in his prime. Brief Encounter is nothing if not a truly cinematic melodrama in which two lovers first meet by complete happenstance in a train depot restaurant. Laura (Hannah Yelland) gets a speck of dirt caught in her eye. Having already caught the eye of a doctor, Alec (Tristan Sturrock), she receives immediate attention from him.

But because this is England, circa 1930s, and these are English characters replete with the proverbial "stiff upper lip," the inhabitants of Brief Encounter are quite proper, if not repressed, in expressing themselves and their feelings. Compounding the matter for Laura is that she's a married mother of two who has settled into a humdrum life. As much as the spark of love from Alec appeals to her, she's reticent in allowing herself to be completely swept away.

Which leads to the second era that those Brief Encounter ushers have shown our way to -- a new era in theatre that seamlessly blends the live action on (and off) the stage with silver screen images and Gemma Carrington and Jon Driscoll's Tony-worthy projection design (if there actually were such a category). The result is a theatrical experience unlike any other -- theatre of the future. That experience allows unfettered access into the hearts and minds of Laura and Alec as love's crashing waves wash over them, almost quite literally.

Yelland and Sturrock are picture perfect as the two lovers. While Alec may go overboard for Laura in more than the figurative sense, neither Yelland or Sturrock overplay their hands into anything resembling camp -- a decidedly difficult task when doing melodrama.

Rice's supporting cast is equally superb, including Annette McLaughlin as Myrtle, the restaurant proprietor, and Joseph Alessi in the dual roles as Myrtle's suitor and Laura's husband. Gabriel Ebert and Adam Pleeth will melt your heart with their splendid renditions of some of Coward's most tuneful songs.

The magnificent Brief Encounter succeeds on so many levels, but particularly because it dares to be different. It'll have you swooning, too.

This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).


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Labels: Annette McLaughlin, Brief Encounter, Broadway, Emma Rice, Gemma Carrington, Hannah Yelland, Jon Driscoll, Joseph Alessi, Noel Coward, Play, The SOB Review, Tristan Sturrock

posted by Steve On Broadway (SOB) @ Wednesday, September 29, 2010