Salonika at West Yorkshire Playhouse
January 24, 2008
Louise Page’s ‘Salonika’ has been performed in over twenty countries including a Stateside version with Jessica Tandy. Set in the Greek seaside setting of Salonika (now Thessaloniki) its main themes are the way our society deals with the elderly and the futility of war.
There is something essentially problematic and flawed about Nikolai Foster’s production at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. Firstly, it is simply not funny enough to keep our interest for the sake of side-splitting or even rib-tickling comedy. Then there is the fact that neither is it poignant enough to serve as a piece of radical pacifist theatre – this is no ‘Mother Courage’.
Josephine Tewson’s performance as 84-year-old Charlotte, gone to Greece to visit her late husband’s grave, is capable but hardly scintillating. Her relationship with her daughter Enid (Lynn Farleigh) is one of the main focuses of the play, but frankly it really does not have the dynamics required to make us that interested in their lives.
Colin Richmond’s ultra-minimal set reminds you of Derek Jarman’s classic film ‘Blue’ with its aqua-marine backdrop. The only other additions are a few sackloads of sand on the stage floor and three doors for entry and egress (the latter hardly appropriate for the scene, a rather lazy theatrical device).
Daniel Bayle’s Peter is meant to be an Adonis-like beach-bum but has neither the swank or swagger to carry this off. There is meant to be a sexual attraction between him and Enid but, again, this is never exactly electric. Paul Fox appears mysteriously as Ben, Charlotte’s husband killed in the Great War, more of a vision than a ghost.
It is here that the most complex and effective part of the play takes off, with a multiplicity of memories and suppositions about the soldier’s life. Another breath of fresh air comes in the form of Fred Pearson’s suitor, Leonard, and this is where Page attempts to explore the issues faced by octogenarians. This aspect of loneliness, loss and separation is the crux of the play, touching but never tear-jerking. Even the finale, with its night sky dotted with stars, is not enough to send us off with anything particularly profound to consider and the characters’ dilemmas are largely (deliberately?) unresolved.
Until 16 February, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds
- Rich Jevons