Theater Review - Brief Encounter

Brief Encounter

Directed and Adapted by Emma Rice

Based on the play Still Life and the screenplay of the Brief Encounter by Noël Coward

When: Saturday, September 12, 2010, 2pm

Where: Studio 54, NYC (Roundabout Theatre Company)

What: Play, Professional Theater, Broadway

I must say that while I wasn't a huge fan of the film Brief Encounter when I watched it nearly two months ago, I did appreciate the simplicity of the tragic love story between a man and woman in 1938 Britain.  Alec and Laura meet at a train station's small café rather innocently.  They go their separate ways, but happen to meet again at a restaurant the following week.  Both are married, but there's a connection that neither can deny.  Soon, the couple are meeting every Thursday, leaving their significant others (along with their children) by the wayside to continue their affair.

Like the movie, the play is extremely simplistic, and, if there's really any problem with the production, it's that the relationship between Laura and Alec isn't fleshed out to anything beyond broad characterizations.  Yes, there's no denying that we feel and understand completely Laura's reluctance (but eventual acceptance) of this relationship, just as we recognize that Alec has essentially fallen in love at first sight with Laura, but the actors (Hannah Yelland and Tristan Sturrock) are so stiff that we as an audience are never completely drawn in.  However, it's not the fault of Yelland or Sturrock or even the play's rather ingenious director Emma Rice.  Those are simply the restrained characters that Noël Coward created.  We're in 1930s-40s Britain and this "personality rigidity" is almost to be expected (it was played in the same manner in the movie).  Laura and Alec know they're doing something taboo, and they place up walls around them to block out their other responsibilities.  While I understand the reasoning behind their characterizations, it doesn't mean I have to be head over heels about it.

What I was head over heels over was nearly everything else on display in this charming production.  It's rather difficult to describe, but Brief Encounter was a multi-sensory experience.  Paying homage to the film on which it is based, director Emma Rice has characters walk in and out of movie screens (done to neat effect multiple times and, as a fan of film, I found the mixing of the two mediums -- film and live theater -- ingenious).

Mixing mediums even further, the play sets many of Noël Coward's poems to music and has the secondary characters sing Laura and Alec's inner thoughts in song.  In the film, Laura is constantly having an inner monologue with herself which we hear in voiceover; the songs as an inner monologue in the play were spot-on and added a theatrical touch that worked very well onstage.  I could go on and on -- puppetry, vaudevillian-style dance numbers (complete with an onstage instrumental trio), clever usage of props -- Rice has staged a marvelous production that surprisingly doesn't push the audience away from the main story, but rather loosens the rigid atmosphere that Laura and Alec have created around themselves.

As I mentioned above, Hannah Yelland and Tristan Sturrock are certainly adequate as the main characters, but the supporting cast brings some much needed happiness to this otherwise anguished tale.  Whether it be Annette McLaughlin's Myrtle, the snooty manager of the train station café, or her love-obsessed younger waitress, Beryl (played by Dorothy Atkinson), or their respective beaus (Joseph Alessi and Gabriel Ebert), these clever comedians lifted my spirits when things got a tad too heavy.

Despite the bells and whistles added to this production, the essence of the play is deeply rooted in 1930s sensibilities.  Things may seem overly dramatic, but I never got a sense that the play was poking fun of the era or attempting to make things ironic.  Instead, it's a love letter to both a bygone era and the films made during that time.

NOTE: I saw this play during previews, so I guess it's possible things could change in the production.