Tea Tree Players Theatre’s first production in a busy year is the classic English farce Charley’s Aunt, and they’ve done it very well indeed. Director Barry Hill OAM has assembled a capable cast and production team, and has chosen to present Paul Thain’s recent adaptation of Brandon Thomas’s original text that hails from the early 1890s! It’s been performed countless times right across the globe over the last one hundred and thirty years, and for good reason.
The story line is classic farce: deception, mistaken identity, frequent comings and goings through multiple doors, prat falls, exaggerated characters, and unlikely situations. It is set in Oxford University in 1890 and the action centres on the amorous pursuits of two undergraduates, Jack (played by Kyle McCarthy) and Charley (Callum Logan) as they desperately seek to be alone with Kitty (Natasha Woods) and Amy (Veronika Wlodarczyk) to declare their undying love. Set in Victorian England, where there are social rules and etiquette to be observed, the girls avoid being alone in the company of the two boys unless there is a chaperone. Reputation is everything! Charley’s Aunt Donna-Lucia D’Alvadorez is about to visit him, and he decides she can chaperone the girls. Donna-Lucia is unfortunately delayed and so the boys coerce their college friend Lord Fancourt Babberly, or ‘Babbs’ for short, to drag up and impersonate Donna-Lucia. At this point it all starts to go wrong, with Jack’s father Sir Francis Chesney (Tom Moore) and Amy’s uncle cum-guardian Stephen Spettigue (Neil Feakin) both taking an unhealthy interest in Donna-Lucia. Eventually the real Donna-Lucia (Kate Reardon) arrives accompanied by her ward Ela (Georgia Gustard), who is in fact Babbs’s long lost love. The situation is resolved and … most of them live happily ever after! Overseeing the mayhem is Brassett (Justin Stone), the ever watchful and judgmental butler to Jack and Charley.
Barry Hill has a keen understanding of period theatre and dramatic comedies of manners. He knows that affectation should not be forced and ought to emerge naturally from well-crafted characterisations, and that is mostly what we get. In particular, Logan’s ‘Charley’ is a delight, and he plays him with just the right amount of awkwardness and hesitation. Logan surely has a bright future on the stage and is one to watch out for.
McCarthy’s ‘Jack’ provides the strength in the friendship and is the perfect foil for love-sick Charley. Drost is frenetic and suitably affected as ‘Babbs’ and, scarily, almost believable as the fake Donna-Lucia! Wlodarczyk is imperious as ‘Amy’ and contrasts in a most engaging way with Logan. It’s as if her ‘Amy’ is almost beyond the reach of ‘Charley’. Similarly, Woods complements McCarthy and the pairing is quite believable. Tom Moore’s ‘Sir Francis’ is solid, and Neil Feakin walks a fine line between believability and overdramatic exaggeration as ‘Spettigue’, but he gets the job done. Reardon’s (real) ‘Donna-Lucia’ is very pleasing, and she gives the role both bearing and dignity, all from someone who has not been on stage for thirty-years! Gustard’s ‘Delahay’ is, quite simply, sweet. Stone gives ‘Brassett’ an air of superiority and suitable deference at the same time.
Paul Thain’s adaptation is much shorter than Brandon Thomas’s original play, but it loses something. Thomas is no Oscar Wilde or George Bernard Shaw, but his text does include an amount of humorous satirical comment and swipes at British class structures. A lot of this is lost in the reduction, but when it is there Hill’s cast deliver it in spades to the delight of the audience. The snarly and witty barbs, usually from the mouth of Brassett, are worth waiting for.
The production is well designed. The costumes and stage properties are evocative of Victorian England, as is the excellent well-lit set, which easily and smoothly changes from one locale to another between acts. The sound effects were a comedic highlight.
Charley’s Aunt is an ‘oldie but a goody’, and definitely worth seeing. Another fine production from Tea Tree Players Theatre.
