Edward Alderton Theatre Home | News | This Season | Next Season | Bookings | Auditions | Members | Archive | History | Location | Links | Contact Us   The Bald Prima Donna by Eugene Ionesco Directed by Tricia Robertson + In Camera by Jean-Paul Satre Directed by Steve Marshall   26 November - 3 December 1977 (7 performances) An evening of two one-act plays.  In The Bald Prima Donna, the Smiths, a traditional family from London, have invited another family, the Martins, over for a visit. They are joined later by the Smiths' maid, Mary, and the local fire chief, who is also a friend and possibly former lover of Mary's. The two families engage in meaningless banter, telling stories and relating nonsensical poems. As the fire chief turns to leave, he mentions 'the bald prima donna' in passing, which has a very unsettling effect on the others... The second play, In Camera, begins with a valet leading a man named Garcin into a room that the audience soon realizes is in Hell: it has no windows, no mirrors and only one door. Eventually Garcin is joined by two woman, Inez and Estelle. After their entry, the valet leaves and the door is shut and locked. All expect to be tortured, but no torturer arrives. Instead, they realize they are there to torture each other...   The Bald Prima Donna Cast Mrs Smith Maureen Hardwen Mr Smith Brian Warner Mrs Martin Gill Leggat Mr Martin Neal Flux Fire Chief Robert Lacey Maid Fay Rose Crew Stage Manager Denise Russell Assistant Stage Managers George Robinson, Vera Robinson     In Camera Cast Valet Alan Palmer Garcin Colin Townsley Inez Gillian Rafferty Estelle Shirley Andrews Crew Stage Manager Pearl Ayling Assistant Stage Managers George Robinson, Chris Weller   Overall Crew Set Designer Steve Marshall Lighting Peter Meehan Pat Martin Sound Bill Ayling Freda Phillips   Review Exciting plays in double bill It is not to underrate the scope of the past productions of the Edward Alderton Theatre, Bexleyheath, to say that their current double bill of lonesco's The Bald Prima Donna and Sartre's In Camera is breaking new ground. lonesco's play clearly disturbed the first night audience as its author — the most famous of the Theatre of Absurd — intended it to do. His characters are insanely bent on destroying everything we take for granted. Mr Smith wonders why the ages of newborn babies are not printed in a newspaper's birth column and an argument is struck up about whether the ringing of a bell necessarily means there is someone at the door. I am informed that lonesco wrote the play after studying English from a phrasebook and picked out what, to his foreign eyes, seemed rightly absurd. Pace is all important in this type of play and ability to say the silliest thing with conviction. Most of the cast hit the right note and Maureen Hardwen (Mrs Smith) and Robert Lacey (Fire Chief) gave particularly manic and very funny performances. Brian Warner (Mr Smith) and Gill Leggatt (Mrs Martin) were rightly made by director Tricia Robertson to contrast the frenzy with deadpan, po-faced zaniness. It was a very dizzy audience which returned after the interval for In Camera. They were confronted with a harshly lit window-less room in Hell with three settees and three characters who proved Sartre's point that "Hell is other people."  Excellent performances and inspired direction from Steve Marshall saved this starkest of plays from being hell to the audience. Instead it was as spine-chilling as any action-packed whodunit to see the realization dawn on the three characters that Hell is not the thought of eternity, it is not private anguish but it is the physical and mental presence of other people. Total concentration was demanded of, and was given by, actors Colin Townsley, Gillian Rafferty and Shirley Andrews. It was a pleasure to watch their nerves tauten, their pretences ripped away even as they sat still without lines or moves to aid them. The sets and technical effects were in both plays expertly handled by the very competent Edward Alderton regulars. G R Bexley Times | 3 December 1977