PERFORMANCE & COMEDY

Tobacco Factory, Bristol (Fri 30 Sept-Sat 1 Oct)

THEATRE It’s a pity that Eclipse Theatre’s remake of Don Evans’s ‘lost’ comedy about class, race and gender in 1970s Philadelphia is only in town for two days. Gloriously funny, beautifully acted and staged, it’s a Restoration comedy restyled for the funk generation and a breath-of-fresh-air reminder that not all humour has to be barbed or twisted, that not all dramas have to be psychologically ‘deep’ and that, actually, theatre can be, like, you know, fun (and still say something intelligent). Interestingly, during the post-show discussion, director Dawn Walton says that Eclipse turned to an African-American play written 30 years ago because they wanted to take a break from hard-hitting issue-based dramas (last year’s tourer was Barrie Keefe’s ‘SUS’) and couldn’t find a contemporary script that fitted the bill.

Whatever the reason for the choice, Evans’s play is certainly a good find, a cutting caper about Myra and Avery, an aspirational black couple who, having crossed the tracks to a largely white neighbourhood, expend most of their energy, time and money trying to keep up appearances – and their distance from the ‘low lifes’ in the predominantly black part of town. Unfortunately for Myra (an unholy cross between Margot from ‘The Good Life’, Mrs Malaprop and Eddie Murphy’s aunt in ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel Air’), ‘low lifes’ like son Felix’s crosstown squeeze Little Bits and Avery’s dead brother’s business partner Caleb troop up the drive with alarming regularity, repeatedly undermining her pretensions at bourgeois life. Worse still, from her point of view, Avery (a preacher) gets his hands on a copy of ‘The Joy of Sex’ and advances into the male menopause with priapic zeal. An added complication comes in the form of Beverly, a dungaree-sporting niece from the South who’s nowhere near the innocent hickstress everyone assumes her to be.

With large on-air signs and canned laughter, Walton frames all this as an episode of a sitcom, much like the aforementioned ‘Cosby Show’. It’s a witty device, and one that serves to heighten the play’s romping comedy, largely by giving the actors licence to go to town in a way that would probably seem way over the top in a ‘straight’ production. As Myra, Jocelyn Jee Esien (of ‘3 Non-Blondes’ and ‘Little Miss Jocelyn’ fame) pretty much steals the show at times with her outraged gurning, wannabe malapropisms and a direct-to-audience monologue about middle-aged sex. Mind you, she’s far from alone in a cast which includes more than a few other scene-stealers – most notably Roger Griffiths as her mouse-that-roared husband; Dan Francis as the smooth-talking, self-styled stud Caleb; and Ayesha Antoine as duckling- turned-swan Beverly.

That’s not to say, of course, that ‘One Monkey...’ doesn’t provide enough chewy stuff to keep the grey matter working (anything set in the class- and race-striated society of 70s America can’t help but do so), but it’s nevertheless rare and doubly pleasing to come across a play which manages to entertain and educate in equal measure – or, more accurately, educate without the audience even noticing. (Tom Phillips)

Copyright Tom Phillips 2011