Amusingly, in a touch I like to think of as deliberate, the programme notes for The Chairs announce that the piece is an example of the Theatre of the "Absurb". Playwright Eugène Ionesco was Romania’s equivalent to Samuel Beckett and their work shares a playful style and stark message: we’ll never find the meaning to life even if one exists – all we have is each other.

In other hands, this could be tiresomely portentous, cold or simply depressing. Happily, however, with this small show, Michael Laurence and ‘(potent pause) productions’ continue their habit of staging plays – often stylised European classics that might otherwise be forgotten – in engaging and accessible ways. [More]

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Behind a cover of sheer netting over the entire room, like food being protected from flies, an old quartermaster general (Michael Lawrence) and his dutiful wife (Cristina Ionda) reminisce about their lives and fantasise about what they might have been.  The man decides he has a message to share with the world based on the culmination of his own life’s experience, and he has hired a brilliant orator to deliver it in this very remote seaside locale, to a crowd of invited guests.

When the doorbells start to ring, each of the four doors with it’s own distinctive tone, the netting comes down and the chairs start to be hauled out to seat the steady stream of invisible guests arriving.  The exuberant innocence of these elderly eccentrics, as portrayed by somewhat younger actors, combines all the perceived joys and horrors of growing old.

(Spoiler warning) Near the end Denise Snoad’s guest-star we’ve all been waiting for appears unexpectedly (unless you just read that) styled as a Santa’s elf, driving home the reason the movement is known as Theatre of the Absurd (warning ends).

Without really wanting to give too much of the ambiguous, cryptic story away, everyone in the world is alleged to be attending (I counted 50 something chairs, plus the vacant ones in the auditorium), and the occasion is declared to be the greatest possible moment in the lives of the devoted old pair, with somewhat final results.

Under director/designer George Tudor the cast exhibit a decidedly demonstrative acting style, as opposed to naturalistic.  A rather distracting feature is the unnecessary and inconsistent French accents – Ionda’s Romanian-French; Lawrence’s Kiwi-French accent – which fluctuate in degrees depending how emotional the characters are being.  If this is intended to have us further question the nature of personal existence by reminding us we’re watching a play performed by actors then I suppose that’s clever, in an alienating sort of way.  Otherwise I seriously suggest dropping the accents. (I wonder how next week’s French language versions – see below – will sound to French speakers.)

The considerable strength and range of the cast’s performances mostly make up for that wee niggle.  There are many engaging elements to this work, the veneer of innocence and simplicity thinly shrouding a bottomless universe of self discovery and deconstruction. The relentless babbling by the old couple has at times an almost hypnotic rhythm to it.  Some of the chairs even seem have personalities of their own, if you want them to.

The smallish, subdued second night audience nicely befitted the spirit of the play.  The odd quiet chuckle, nothing raucous…  The atmosphere is a blend of pity, amusement, confusion, regret and hope.  In other words, another play about the eternally questionable phenomenon of human existence. 

Note:  Performances will be in:

English 12 – 15 / 24 – 28 March
French 17 – 22 March.

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