Gryphon Theatre
November 7-17 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon

REGRETTABLY this review is post-humus, but Stagecraft’s latest show on offer was anything but dead and done when I viewed it opening night. A convincing, well-melded team lead by Iona Anderson brought Michael Palin’s work to quirky life, and granted Palin’s feisty characters the depth they deserved.

The script has the oddity and magic of all those Monty Python works, set within the bounds of everyday English country life. In confusion and hilarious frustration, a middle-aged couple struggle with their own disappointments and with the arrival of equally unhappy – and deceitful – children and neighbours for ‘the weekend’.

The Stagecraft cast had a strong handle on their lines and performance at the beginning of the show’s run, with interactions well-timed and positioning within the theatre generally conducive to naturalism. Alan Carabot was well-cast and consistent in his role as Alan, providing the most delightful moments of boredom. He could however have injected more absurdity and variation into his role, to gain milage from his character’s immoral twist. Shannon Tubman was highly believable as his wife, the dour-faced Dianna, and Jim Stanton as the teenager Charlotte made the most of what could have been character-typing in the script, with lines that were too typically materialistic and spiteful to be believable.

But it was the Febbles who stole the show, with Petra Donnison smoothly unraveling the layers of Virginia Febble’s torturous relationship with her husband. John Chalmers played the obnoxious Stephen Febble outstandingly, managing to underlay the acerbic wit with enough insecurity and vulnerability to keep the audience engaged.

Lighting design and operation was perhaps the aspect of the production that could have been most improved. The blackouts between scenes on the night I attended were stretched to breaking point, and failed to maintain the audience’s attention. Each new scene then had to work to regain our interest and re-establish the play’s mood. Quicker changes, and non-total blackouts would ease the pressure on the cast to constantly re-engage us.

Costuming by Sue Taylor and Iona Anderson by and large captured the understated spirit of modern day Suffolk. Stephen’s Cambridge jacket was dashingly silly-looking, and Virginia was dressed in modest yet flattering English dress. Only Charlotte, and Duff (Marty Pilott) on his first entrance, were clothed at odds to their personalities. Charlotte seemed too young a teen, unworldly and definitely not yet at college. And Duff seemed stuffier and more kitsch than the English gentlemen he is assumed to be.

Despite these quibbles The Weekend was thoroughly entertaining, and perhaps the most competently performed and produced piece of community theatre I have seen this year. Let’s hope that we’ll see the same team together again for future Stagecraft productions.