Details
Venue: Omnibus Theatre, Wandsworth
Dates: 29 Jan –17 Feb, Tue-Sat 7.30pm, Sun 4 pm
Ticket prices: £16, £13 Conc.
SYNOPSIS
Fizzing comedy and catastrophe collide in Multi award-winning director Kristine Landon-Smith’s revival of The Orchestra, the neglected classic by celebrated French dramatist Jean Anouilh.
A third-rate orchestra in a French spa town plays time-worn musical arrangements to an indifferent audience. In between the musical interludes, idle chit-chat reveals the power struggles that lurk behind the ensemble’s shiny veneer.
As the overture descends into an intoxicating symphony of piercing jealousy, bizarre gossip and thwarted emotions, the musicians reach an unexpected climax – but the music goes jauntily on…
OUR VERDICT
Once one of the world’s most widely performed playwrights, today Jean Anouilh’s name will go unnoticed by most theatregoers. With the exception of Chichester and the staging of Becket, his most famous work, back in 2004 at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, Anouilh hasn’t awakened much interest recently in directors across the UK.
Is then Kristine Landon-Smith’s unearthing of this forgotten play a timely decision or rather one doomed to fail? Sometimes, great authors get unjustly forgotten by the unfairness of capricious circumstances; however, others simply are just too tied to their own period in time and don’t click as much with modern audiences. In our view, it’s the latter category that we fear tunes into The Orchestra.
Set in a brasserie in a spa town in post-war France, a second-rate orchestra consisting of six women and a one-man entertain an invisible audience with popular ballads and light cabaret performances.
In between songs we listen to the conversations of the band members and witness the sexual tension between Suzanne (Stefania Licari), the cellist, and the pianist, M Leon (Pedro Casarin). This tension is exacerbated by the predatory conductor, Mme Hortense (Amanda Osborne), who seduces him in an attempt to impose her authority and to undermine Suzanne.
The other female members of the orchestra engage in petty conversations about their private lives. Despite the many moving and poignant snippets, the talk mainly revolves about men and the power they have on women. And even though there’s only one male member in the orchestra (and an elusive maître who quietly observes from afar), the play is deeply male-centric, if just for the caustic effect that men have on women.
Accusations and diatribes fly regarding who collaborated with the Nazis during the invasion. This is perhaps the most interesting and trenchant piece of the play since Anouilh, who despite being briefly a prisoner of war after the German invasion, remained apolitical most of his life, which caused him to be labelled as a collaborator by many.
Written in 1962, these dialogues in The Orchestra might be more meaningful than what they seem to be - whereas as a justification of the French playwright’s own actions or as exposure of the pettiness of the gossip surrounding his case.
It’s a shame that the music accompanying the play is not played live by the ensemble. Although the poor recordings, almost funfair like, highlight the crummy nature of the orchestra and the absurdism surrounding it all, it would have definitely have had a more engaging effect to come directly from the ensemble’s instruments.
It might be the case that it had a deeper meaning that escaped to us, but the fact that the theatre door remained open during the whole performance (and facing the tempting bar), was distracting and didn’t add much to the play.
TeatroLatino’s diverse casting is a refreshing a very much needed contribution to the British stage. Although some performances were more polished than others, Amanda Osborne as Mme Hortense brings life to a manipulative and bitter person towards the end of her career. Unfortunately, some of the dialogues were too fast and hard to understand at times, and occasionally, too overdramatic.