School for Scandal
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
State Theatre Company
The Playhouse
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
The last time director Simon Phillips worked with designer Mary Moore it was for Edward Bond’s Restoration. Now with School for Scandal they turn from satiric pastiche to the real thing. But these days the real thing- in the case of Sheridan- means blending Restoration manner with a good deal of satiric pastiche.
This State has done with considerable flair. Characteristically, Moore’s design is both intelligent and smartly detailed. A huge scroll of steel provides the backdrop to a set of smoked glass screens which comprise the various configurations of the action. The printing press effect is due to the fact that most of our goss comes from the tabloids these days- and so the whitefaced servants all wear newsprint tunics and stand like a row of commuters concealed by morning papers.
The fortunes of the Surface brothers – smarmy Joseph and profligate-but-heart-of-gold Charles- are adroitly presented as they are tested in various social situations by their incognito uncle Oliver. Joseph’s intrigues with Lady Sneerwell and her cronies Backbite and Crabtree are given considerable appeal not only because of the performances but the wit of the costumes.
Mary Moore has described Mrs Candour’s outfit as waist-up 18th century, waist-down 20th century although there is a strong touch of the 19th as well. Maria, the patient young ward destined for Charles, looks just like Disney’s Alice complete with blond wig, headband and -for the closet intertextuals- a copy of a Mills and Boon novel. The costume variations are nicely droll. Oliver, back from Calcutta with international airline codes on his luggage, is dressed in 18th century Palm Springs Hawaiian while Crabtree borrows from Auntie Jack and Backbite is plaid to the gallery.
Among the performers Philip Holder puts in his best work so far for State with his cool account of Joseph. Dressed in frock coat with an ironically legal-looking wig, he is a picture of unprincipled nonchalance and a foil to Lisle Jones’s comically dignified and anchoring performance as Sir Peter Teazle. As his teasing Lady, Helen Buday- with some fluff borrowed from Bernadette Peters and a great deal of style of her own- manages to hunt with the horrid and, at the denouement, repent her misdemeanours as well.
As Lady Sneerwell Celia de Burgh revives some of the edge from previous dangerous liaisons while Francis Greenslade is hilariously vile as Backbite. John Cousins is a sturdy Rowley, Don Barker, daft as Crabtree and Edwin Hodgeman plays Oliver Surface with pleasurable irony. Luciano Martucci could have trusted the semiotics more- looking the way it did the play needed very little more in the way of performance decibels. Claire Jones, as Maria, understood that. So again did Phillip Holder, doubling marvellously as teddy boy Sir Toby Bumper.
Karen Norris’s lighting gives a sardonic touch to the proceedings and Ian McDonald is, as ever, inventive at the keyboard despite a surfeit from the harpsichord button in the first act. Simon Phillips has gathered a good cast and made intelligent fun with a play that carries no guarantees of success for audiences these days. Restoration comedy is far removed from contemporary tastes but Phillips and Mary Moore have given us a sharp Scandal with some terrific spin.
The Adelaide Review, July, 1993, p.31.