Bedroom Farce, Canberra Rep, 19 Feb-7 Mar

 

Alan Ayckbourn's play has a slightly misleading title - while it's set in three bedrooms it's not really a farce (as that genre is far more about propulsive plots and frantic acting-before-thinking). Structurally this is another of Ayckbourn's experiments with form, taking place in three different bedrooms over one very long night and into the next morning as the residents mostly fail to get a good night's sleep due to the rampaging couple Trevor and Susannah. It's a look at hetro relationships as they were in the 1970s and as they still frequently are now - the minor dissatisfactions, the passive-agressions, the agressive agressions and the late night conversations that have a little too much truth in them. 

In the far left bedroom are Ernest and Delia, who's idea of an adventurous night is a nice restaurant followed by sardines-on-toast in bed. Pat Gallagher gives Ernest a nicely subdued, slightly Eyore-ish nature as he worries about the damp patch and the ettiquete of tipping, while Sally Rynveld as Delia has an iron fist in the velvet glove as she steers Ernest none-too-gently towards what she particularly wants. 

In the middle bedroom are Malcolm and Kate, just moved in together and about to have their housewarming but still playing pranks on one another. Antonia Kitzel gives Kate an anxious host energy, trying to show everyone a good time even at the possible expense of her own dignity, while Lachlan Abrahams gives Malcolm bumptious enthusiasm  covering up an easily bruised ego that becomes apparent as their conversation gets a little deeper in the second act. 

On the far right are Jan and Nick - Jan preparing for a night of being social at Malcolm and Kate's housewarming, Nick confined to bed after a recent back injury. Azerie Cromhout gives Jan an inner irritability while Rob de Fries is ragefully self-pitying as Nick fails to keep himself from exacrbating his injuries in all kinds of deligutful ways.

In between all three bedrooms are the dreaded Trevor and Susannah - a relationship on the rocks which infests each of the other three couples in various ways. James Grudnoff gives Trevor a self-centred air, blithely unaware of what he's doing to those around him, while Lara Connolly's Susannah attempts to and mostly fails to maintain her calming mantra. 

Andrew Kay's set gives us the vibes of each of the three host couples pretty easily, from the not-quite-fully-furnished mixed wallpaper of Malcolm and Kate to the modernist-futon-pad of Nick and Jan and the charmingly fusty room of Earnest and Delia. Mike Maloney manages the shifting lighting states across all three across the evening, and James McPherson sets mood well with pre-show tunes and three different ringtones for the telephones in each room. Cate Clelland dresses them all in a mix of evening-and-bedtime wear. 

Aarne Neeme stages a fairly tight production that gets a lot of laughs out of familiar characters and situations, with a little bit of truth in there as well.