Guilt, guilt and more guilt. Fashion designer Samantha is talking to dummies again (three of them her mannequins), and knocking back whisky waiting for the phone to ring. It doesn’t, and there’s no escaping the self-recrimination that comes with desiring her best friend’s man. Writing cheques out to charities in response to begging letters isn’t having the desired effect of assuaging her guilt. So it carries on.
It had all the ingredients of a good show – a beautiful and dramatic set for Samantha’s workshop-cum-salon, a large stage and plenty of bums on seats, and, of course, Arnold Wesker’s famous script with scope for a range of personalities: the passionate, charismatic Samantha, the independent Samantha and the troubled Samantha.
Yet there was a gulf between performer Jo Merriman and the audience which she never managed to bridge. She did an admirable job of delivering her lines but it was without the range the role required. It was difficult to believe she was really the duplicitous Samantha; she needed to let go a bit. Samantha knocked back the whisky yet Merriman showed no sign of loosening and remained in control, rarely, if ever, making eye contact with the audience.
While this might have been planned – the guilty don’t do eye contact – it was alienating. On a smaller stage it would not have been possible to be so distant from the audience. In this case the stage was really too big for her, and she was lost in the set’s grandeur.
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