England 1932, 15 years after the Great War. The Ardsley family entertain their friends to tennis matches and tea. However, what at first appears to be a conventional drawing room drama is turned on its head with a series of stunning climaxes. For Services Rendered is dramatic, poignant and thought-provoking.
For Services Rendered is presented by special arrangement with Samuel French, Ltd
CAST
Leonard Ardsley
Marcus Wakely
Charlotte Ardsley
Cynthia Marsh
Sydney
Chris Sims
Eva
Clare Choubey
Lois
Danielle Wain
Ethel Bartlett
Helen Barton
Howard Bartlett
Malcolm Todd
Collie Stratton
Graeme Jennings
Wilfred Cedar
Robert Suttle
Gwen Cedar
Gill Cook
Dr. Prentice
David Pain
Gertrude
Eleanor Watson
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Review: For Services Rendered, Lace Market Theatre
Near the start of this traditional three-act piece, after the opening bars of Elgar’s First, some happy young things come on in whites, all hot from a game of tennis. A dead giveaway you might think. But this takes the “anyone for tennis?” genre and turns it on its head. The action happens entirely on a semi-realistic drawing-room set, but it’s no drawing room comedy. This is your dysfunctional family writ large. And it all ends in tears.
The play is set in 1932, but emphatically harks back to the Great War. Considering it was written as well in 1932, it contains many prophetic intimations of the next war just seven years hence.
Acting is generally excellent. Danielle Wain, as Lois, looks absolutely right for the early thirties; but the character is too cold and unmoving to have the men dancing round her as they do. Newcomer Chris Sims, as the cynical Sydney, blinded in the war, gives a brilliantly realistic performance. And Maugham speaks through him near the end to denounce the conflict as futile.
This is in large part a State of the Nation play. The tragic Collie, well played by Graeme Jennings, was dropped by the Navy because of the Geddes Axe and is presently struggling to keep his garage business afloat in the Great Depression.
Gill Cook, as Gwen Cedar, keeps sneaking looks at the audience for no dramatic reason, but is given some of the most entertaining lines of a sometimes funny evening. Robert Suttle (Wilfred Cedar), David Pain (Dr Prentice), Malcolm Todd (Howard Bartlett) and others turn in excellent performances.
This is Somerset Maugham near his best as a playwright. And directed by Di Richards, it’s also a solidly LMT, large cast, well costumed production. It’s therefore well worth getting the coat on for.
Read the original article here.
For Services Rendered
Somerset Maugham's 1932 play is a strong opening for the Lace Market Theatre's new season. Gareth Morgan went along to review the first performance.
Written and set in 1932, just fifteen years on from the end of the First World War and three years after the Wall Street Crash, For Services Rendered is Somerset Maugham's penetrating state-of-the-nation play that unpicks the changed world of a dwindling post-war little England. The Ardsley family are the archetype of provincial middle-class England, and are hosting guests at their home for a genteel summer party. It's a picture of tennis whites, clipped King's English, tea, and cucumber sandwiches; however when this surface is scratched there is uncertainty lurking just underneath. Eldest daughter Ethel is married to a retired officer-turned-farmer, not born into the moneyed privilege she was and is very obviously never allowed to forget it by her sisters. Eva is unmarried and approaching forty, martyring herself to the cause of their brother Sydney, another veteran who, having been blinded in the war, passes his days idly playing chess and bridge. Finally, youngest daughter Lois, twenty-six, single and apparently with no hope of marrying in the remote Kent village where they live, plots her escape from the stifling family home. In the face of such strain only their father, Leonard, remains blissfully, blithely unaware; he sits giving thanks for the wellness of his family with his nice cup of tea.
This production by the Lace Market Theatre, marking the start of their new season, is a mixed bag. There are some good supporting performances by Graeme Jennings as decorated former naval officer, and now struggling local garage owner, Collie, Cynthia Marsh (last seen up to her neck in sand in Beckett's Happy Days) as mother Charlotte, who comes into her own in Act III, and the standout Helen Barton, who plays the subtext of her part with nuance, as unhappy Ethel. The rest of the cast were a little short of polish, which should come during the run, although David Pain's Dr Prentice was played with too much pompous bluster and posturing.
In its direction, the stage action overall lacked a cohesiveness, with moves having little action behind them and, whilst a nice motif, the looking glass metaphor of seeing through the masks the characters put on themselves was not used to its fullest. The ending was also rather clumsily handled in its over-action; lacking a still and reflective calm to emphasise each character's isolation when facing their uncertain futures. That said, with one notable exception of a 3 minute blacked-out scene change which could have been handled in a far more interesting way, the production has a real pace to it. The script charges along like a bull escaping the china shop and running through the streets of Pamplona; it is the real star of the show. Maugham's writing, in its deconstruction of its contemporary 1930s drawing-room comedies, smashes their conventional dramaturgy, gives the whole evening a charged feel, and allows its audience to become totally engaged.
The play, starting in such well-mannered surroundings and crying out for a traditional, recognisable comic plot, is instead liberated, giving voice to issues of unhappiness, un-fulfillment, illness, unrequited sexual advances, and small-minded bigotry toward class and disability. All of the characters are flawed but Maugham reserves his judgement on most, save for those too caught up in themselves to see what is happening before their eyes. For Maugham the greatest vices are vanity and self-interest. All these vulgarities that one ought not put on the stage are thrown wide open and a vicious, discontented anti-war message comes roaring out to a country and play-going public that at the time didn’t want to hear. Unsurprisingly, when first produced the play was unpopular, deemed unpatriotic, and ran for only 78 performances.
The writing isn't just commendable in its structure - there are great speeches too, most notably in Act III when the play accelerates even further. Charlotte finding her freedom after receiving the prognosis on her unknown illness was beautifully uplifting and Sydney's acerbic outburst on the futility of war is eerily prophetic as in less than a decade the country would again find itself at war, and again consign another generation of young men and women to the same fate. So too are the more contemporary echoes of those who, having lost everything in a stock market crash, are forced like Collie to make terrible decisions.
This was a thoroughly engaging night at the Lace Market Theatre, who have also refurbished their toilets and made upgrades to other parts of the building over the summer, and, despite the mild criticisms of the production, this is a brilliantly worthwhile evening at the theatre; seeing a rarely-performed piece of exemplary British playwriting.
Read the original article here.
FOR SERVICES RENDERED
Nottingham Lace Market Theatre
For Services Rendered is a play by Somerset Maughan. First performed in London in 1932, The play is (apparantly) about the effects of World War I on an English family.The anti-war message was not popular with audiences back then, and the play only ran for 78 performances, which shows that audiences in 1932 probably found the play as entertaining as I did.
I always say that a play has to leave you feeling some kind of emotion by the end, but I'm sorry to say that this play left me feeling nothing but confused. Is confusion an emotion?
The effects from World War 1 was just a minor thread, and I would not have said that this theme was in any way major, more so was the mental state of the middle class Ardsley family. I couldn't really warm to any of Maughan's characters apart from Sydney, the blind son whose wartime service was cut short due to his being blinded in action. Sydney, played by Chris Sims, had some wonderfully cutting lines to deliver. The Downton Dame Maggie of this play and this certainly lifted the slightly depressing feel.
Depressing? Yes There is suicide, unfaithfulness, deceit, greed. Oh my God Thanks to Sydney for the light humour! I'm sorry I just could not get excited about this even though the set was wonderful (I want a living room like theirs complete with the French doors) and the actors really did do their best with what I thought was a pretty drab script. There was one section though where one of the actors broke the fourth wall several times, which was out of character with all of the other characters in the play and raised the play to panto level. Something that should have been picked up maybe in rehearsal by the director.
I also didn't understand the rapid turn of emotions of Eva as one minute she was distraught beyond emotion over the death of one of the characters, and was carted off to her room inconsolable, and the next minute she had got changed and was doing her best impression of a looney with visions of dead people coming back to announce wedding plans. Where was the gradual build up?
I hate to be negative in my reviews but for me, honesty is the key, and these are my own personal views. I just thought that the play was not a strong one and one that should not have been picked at all.The actors performed well, gave their all and looked like they were well into the eccentricities of their characters, but it just was not for me I'm afraid. Go make your own mind up though!
Read the original article here.
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