Home | News | This Season | Next Season | Bookings | Auditions | Members | Archive | History | Location | Links | Contact Us An Evening of Three One
Act Plays
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| Lady
of Letters directed by Matthew Arnold |
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| Cast | |
| Irene Ruddock | Eleanor McEnery |
| Soldiering
On directed by Matthew Arnold |
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| Cast | |
| Muriel | Maureen Hardwen |
| After
Magritte directed by Viv Stapleton |
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| Cast | |
| Reginald Harris | Ian Saxton |
| Thelma Harris | Gill Grubb |
| Mother | Maureen Hardwen |
| Constable Holmes | Andrew Kelly |
| Chief Inspector Foot | Richard Banks |
| Crew | |
| Stage Manager | Jenny Devonshire |
| Assistant Stage Manager | Stephanie David |
| Set Construction | John Vinnels, Ron Andrews, Peter Smith, Horry Stapleton, Steve Grubb, Linda Saxton, Richard Banks, Janet Smith, Tierney Smith |
| Backstage | Annette Tranter, Peter Smith, Steve Grubb |
| Artwork | Annette Tranter |
| Choreography | David Ollin |
| Properties | Annette Tranter |
| Lighting Rig | Jerry McKeon, Christine McKeon |
| Lighting Operation | Richard Jeffreys |
| Sound | David Shields |
Costumes by arrangement with Erith Playhouse and Bustles and Breeches. Tuba courtesy of Welling Salvation Army.
Reviews
You may get Magritte links, but how does tortoise fit in?
Once again, the Edward Alderton Theatre in Bexleyheath has given another example of its versatility and creativity, writes Roy Atterbury. The latest production featured three one-act plays - two of which were written by a well-known playwright from the North and (for the first time ever) I have been asked not to divulge his name or the titles of his plays. Each work was a monologue performed by an actress and could be termed as tragi-comedies. The third play was by Tom Stoppard and was called After Magritte.
The monologues complemented each other very well and enabled two of the best actors in the EAT company to show off their talents and neither wasted the opportunity. Eleanor McEnery portrayed a middle-aged and rather sad, lonely woman who viewed life through the top-floor window of her flat and spent the rest of her time writing letters of complaint to everyone from the editor of her local paper to the Queen. Unfortunately, she misconstrued some of the events she wrote about and ended up at the wrong end of the law. Ms McEnery created a genteel lady with a bright mind, locked in her own little world and finding her salvation in the most unexpected of ways. A mesmerizing performance.
In the second work, Maureen Hardwen played a widowed and well-to-do woman who was blissfully happy with her life until her son took every penny she had and she lost all her friends. However, she remained totally forgiving and, somehow, retained total control of what was left of her disappearing lifestyle. By far the sadder of the two works, it was a great performance by the actor.
After Magritte was written by a very versatile writer but those members of the audience who had never heard of the Belgian surrealist painter Magritte would have been nonplussed by the opening scene. Centre stage was a near-naked man in rubber suit on a table trying to mend a light fixing. All the furniture had been moved to block the front door while his wife was crawling around the floor in a ball gown and shoes.
Peering through a window was the top half of an expressionless policeman, and lying on a bed was a figure in a black rubber mask with one foot on an iron, wearing a dressing gown, and appearing to be in the middle of a surgical procedure. Very surreal. When a chief inspector finally got the front door opened and entered the room, he accused the pair of indecent and unlawful practices and also of being involved in a criminal offence by a man who had one leg, was carrying a tortoise, and wearing a Tranmere Rovers soccer shirt.
At the back of the excellent set by John Vinnels and Ron Andrews was a copy of a Magritte painting. Excellent performances by Ian Saxton, Maureen Hardwen and Gill Grubb brought the trio in the room to hilarious life while Richard Banks was outstanding as the highly comical Chief Inspector and as Constable Holmes, Andrew Kelly made the perfect foil to his boss's inane investigation.
In reality, Stoppard has shown that the apparent surrealism could be given a perfectly reasonably explanation and still carry through the comic elements of the story. A nice touch was to allow the husband (Ian Saxton) to wear one of Magritte's famous ill-fitting bowler hats while Gill Grubb was superb throughout.
Matthew Arnold is to be congratulated on his sensitive direction for the first plays while director Viv Stapleton ensured that the pace and the fun rarely entered the realms of pure farce in the Stoppard work.
Roy Atterbury
Kentish Times | 16 February 2006
Three-for-one value plays out at theatre
It was three for the price of one at the Edward Alderton Theatre, with a night of three one-act plays. The opening monologue saw Irene Ruddock (Eleanor McEnery) as a lonely and compulsive letter writer, spying on neighbours she doesn't know and actions she can't understand. Slowly, we discover that her pen is poisoned as her compulsion takes on an altogether more sinister tone. Only in prison does she find true release in the shape of community and friendship.
In the second monologue, Muriel (Maureen Hardwen) is at her rich husband's wake. Despite the company, she is equally lost. Trusting to family and fortune she finds little comfort in the former and the latter rapidly disposed of by her son. Yet even her poverty cannot totally depress her spirits and new possibilities emerge. Both actresses displayed an effective range of contrasting emotions, which complemented the changes in their lives.
In the final play, After Magritte by Tom Stoppard, tubas and tutus mixed surreal logic and absurd actions. With the lampshade counterbalanced by a hanging basket of fruit, it wasn't just belief that was suspended. Nothing was quite what it seemed in a play of visual and verbal dexterity, where the police looked for a missing search warrant and everyone else searched for the plot.
Nick Marsden
Bexley Extra | 16 February 2006
