Farce is one of the hardest theatrical forms to get right and one of the easiest to enjoy watching. The characters and plotting have to be every bit as tight as a serious drama but with the additional -and essential- burden upon the writer to sustain increasingly big laughs all the way through. It always works best when it has real, believable characters trapped in a very serious situation. Get that established, get it right, and then you can exaggerate those characters as much as you like and add increasingly outrageous turns of events to that situation.
Australian writer MARIEKE HARDY has not messed with this formula in her timely updating of the popular 1974 work Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! for the 2020s. In this respect No Pay? No Way! succeeds brilliantly. Indeed, BRYONY SHANAHAN’S raucous (and often savage) new production succeeds in most respects. I am reviewing it here and so, naturally, I have yet to read anyone else’s reviews of it but the pull-out quotations on the publicity and the hefty constellations of ***** awarded suggest that my sense of the production’s success is widely shared. I do not translate my reviews into stars because I prefer them to be read, but today I will make an exception and give this show a star rating. But not now, because I am shameless. Keep reading, I beg…
The plot revolves around two married heterosexual couples, the husbands being co-workers at a large food processing plant. Luigi and Margherita have been married only five months. For the older Antonia and Giovanni, wedded bliss has endured for at least twenty years. What begins as an ordinary working day spirals into anything but after a spontaneous and communal act of civil disobedience in a neighbourhood supermarket. This flashmob of looting occurs offstage but involves Antonia, who returns home laden with food not paid for and presses Margherita into helping her carry it inside. The furious revolt of the shoppers has been sparked by the doubling of grocery prices overnight; as good an indication as any of why this play is being presented right now.
Removed from the adrenaline rush of the moment, Antonia begins to fret about the possible repercussions of her direct actions. With the reluctant connivance of Margherita, she devises ways to hide the evidence of her heroically liberated groceries. At first the women only need to hide it from their husbands but as matters escalate in the way of great farce, the police and eventually all of the emergency services become involved. As does the Pope. Sudden pregnancies, decapitated rabbits, arrests, deaths, explosions and a helicopter… Oh yes it is all happening today.
What sets No Pay? No Way! apart from most farces is how unashamedly political it is. What sets it apart from Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! (which I saw in the equally grim days of 1982, so help me) is the way that Hardy has shifted the focus of the play so seamlessly onto the women. The skill and inspiration involved are impressive. Shanahan’s direction matches the writing for strength and for sheer commitment to making things as simultaneously ridiculous and convincing as possible throughout. This. Is. Not. Easy.
The action is pointedly set in the UK of today, as countless jokes and references make plain. However, the Italian names and the Italian atmosphere on show are a refreshing reminder that those who would see Britain as a monoculture are tilting at windmills. When the dialogue gets nakedly political it does so gleefully, with global capitalism and the cynical apparatus of the State the primary targets.
Rather like everyone I know, Giovanni and Antonia are drowning in a sea of financial troubles and so it is only right that their home resembles a submarine. We are not talking about the dark claustrophobia of Vigil or Das Boot here, more a children’s gameshow set from the 1980s, and it is perfection. To discuss the spectacular design work of CÉCILE TRÉMOLIÈRES at this point is essential because the set almost dictates the show. The front door is a bulkhead hatchway and everyone uses a periscope to look outside. There are giant levers, a chest freezer, and chunky pipework all around. A huge, curling funfair slide comes in for a lot of use. All of this in candy and bubblegum colours as though the show were being sponsored by Swizzels. ELLIOT GRIGGS lights everything beautifully and, crucially, as though this were a serious drama by Ibsen. Apart from certain moments which I have no intention of spoiling.
After the interval the action switches to roads and streets, but the set remains in place. To ‘explain’ this, one of the cast -for me, the star of the show- is forced to come out and explain that some of the Royal Exchange workers have called a wildcat strike. Indeed, we see one of them walking out. As a consequence, the travelators that (we are assured) would usually be in place now are unavailable today. This interlude is peppered with gags about current political and theatre shenanigans and is perfectly delivered. It also prepares us for the unforgettable sight of the cast pretending not only to walk or run in pursuit of one another during the following scenes, but also to be doing it on imaginary travelators. It is a masterpiece of physical clowning.
This brings me neatly to the cast, and closer to that Star Rating. KATHERINE PEARCE gets an immediate laugh for her uptight, wayward pigtails. In her experienced hands Margherita embodies a perpetually repressed and pissed-off volatility. As husband Luigi, GURJEET SINGH gives the glorious impression of a man forever doomed to be trying to catch up. This is a performance to cherish, always funny and always endearing.
It is not easy to convey the size and significance of ANWAR RUSSELL’s contribution to this production. He plays everyone who is not one of the central couples, each performance as distinct from the others as it needs to be – which will make sense once you see the play. Flamboyant menace is hard to pull off but Russell does it magnificently, more than once. His comic timing is as perfect as I have ever seen. The first time he appears he has a moment of messing about with an unco-operative radio antenna that left me breathless from laughing so much.
So what about my hotly-anticipated Star Rating? Well it is complicated. At another performance on a different day, I could imagine this production achieving a *****. Today I can only stretch to *** and that is a great pity. A small-cast farce as tightly plotted and delicately timed as this one relies on everybody concerned giving it the same level of energy. This did not happen today and it was very noticeable. A hot afternoon on a weekday halfway through the run. I guess it is understandable if some performers’ enthusiasm is flagging, and in the audience you never know what an individual actor might be going through that day. Whatever the reason, the fact remains that for this performance, things were off balance.
Inevitably, the whole play suffered as a consequence: the pace was not sustained as it needed to be and where there should have been crackles there were wobbles. Even droops. This is a great shame because everything has clearly been put together so carefully as a labour of love.
Ideally I would have bought another ticket afterwards for a different performance and reviewed that one instead. I believe the review would have ended on a much happier note. Unfortunately but appropriately for No Pay? No Way! I cannot bloody well afford to! ***(**)
Written by: Dario Fo and Franca Rame
In a New Version by: Marieke Hardy
Directed by: Bryony Shanahan
Designer: Cécile Trémolières
Lighting Designer: Elliot Griggs
Composer & Sound Designer: Russell Ditchfield
Cast:
Roger Morlidge (Giovanni)
Katherine Pearce (Margherita)
Samantha Power (Antonia)
Anwar Russell (Sergeant/Inspector/Undertaker/Old Man)
Gurjeet Singh (Luigi)
Theatre Va-va-voom! 