Michelle Moran and Ryan Doyle (back), Anthony White (front center) in Salem State University Theater Department’s “Bedroom Farce.” Kevin Doyle photograph
So much happens in bedrooms.
Apart from the obvious—surprisingly, not much of that occurs in Alan Ayckbourn’s “Bedroom Farce—bedrooms make a great place for drama. And miscues. And humor.
Ayckbourn’s 1975 comedy, playing through Feb. 23 in the Callan Studio Theatre at Salem State University, places three bedrooms onstage, introduces four insecure and slightly daft couples, and lets human nature take its course.
Directed by Celena Sky April, the intrepid Salem State Theatre Department players tackle Ayckbourn’s early work with typical enthusiasm. Acting from the octet of players is almost always on point, with deeply thought-out characterizations. Often the pacing slows the transitions, interjecting lulls into the outrageous interactions that dull the effect.
The action centers around Trevor (Anthony White), a kind of neutron bomb for relationships. Everything Trevor does upsets everyone else.
He’s in constant battle with his wife Susannah (Alexandra White), whose permanently ruined mascara serves as a visual sign of their petulant squabbles. His arrival at Malcolm (Stephen Caliskan) and Kate’s (Natalia Buitta) housewarming party leaves everyone in an uproar. An impetuous kiss for a former sweetheart—Jan (Michelle Moran)—disperses everyone into different bedrooms.
Woeful Susannah takes her insecurities to Trevor’s parents house, her in-laws Delia (Symphony Shea) and Ernest (Tim Etzel). Kate goes home to her bedridden husband Nick (Ryan Richard Doyle), to confess and then brag a little about her misadventure. (The stolen kiss is the only real “sex” in the whole play, although Ernest and Delia try hard to make eating sardines in bed seem erotic.) Everyone in every bedroom is involved in some relationship drama. And Tim keeps making those dramas worse.
The set for “Bedroom Farce” never changes: three bedrooms, on different levels. No props are introduced during the play. Spotlights shift the scene from one bed to another, and some characters remain onstage in the dark while other scenes take place, hiding under the covers or just sitting still. All the possibilities remain on view all the time.
Pace dominates in “Bedroom Farce.” With no sets to change, no props to introduce and no costume changes, all the action stays close to the surface. Rapid, inexplicable personal disruptions are the norm. Scenes work best when they ricochet off each other.
Sometimes that sense of urgency went missing—dead space between shifts in action spells disaster for Ayckbourn’s intentional chaos, and transitions on opening night weren’t as crisp as they might be.
Physical comedy helped. Nick, bedridden with a bad back, fills an entire scene simply by getting tangled in the covers. Malcolm gets a cramp that contorts his entire body with preposterous looniness. Strong characterizations from Jan as the devil-may-care object of attention, by Delia as the knowing older spouse, by Malcolm as the determined party host—all fulfill Ayckbourn’s possibilities.
“Bedroom Farce” is an early version the great Ayckbourn, of the Norman Conquest trilogy of plays. It remains a taut, sophisticated work with rich theatrical possibilities. The characters are all genuine, if a bit dizzy. Accents—everyone is British—sounded organic and unforced.
The premise works beautifully, but speeding up the transitions from one harebrained bedroom scene to another would bring the comedy closer to a complete realization.
Salem State University Theatre Department stages Alan Ayckbourn’s “Bedroom Farce” through Feb. 23 in the Callan Studio Theatre. Visit salemstatetickets.com or call 978 542-6365.