Is it Still Life or Brief Encounter? Still Life is Noel Coward's original one-act play, and the better-known Brief Encounter is the film, for which Coward also wrote the script.
All of Still Life's action takes place in a railway station's refreshment room, nicely presented at the Globe on a set designed by Louise Petherbridge, who is also the director. In this mundane setting, as a result of a chance encounter, unexpected passion flares between a middle-class housewife and an idealistic doctor, both pleasantly if not excitingly married to other people. Meanwhile, at the counter, romances of another kind blossom between members of the station's staff.
The play's success depends on the audience believing in the depth of the attraction between its main characters, and on a finely balanced tension between attraction an d respectability. Fortunately, Denise Casey, as Laura, and Chris Jacobs, as Alec, bring conviction to scenes that, if not expertly handled, could easily seem ridiculously soppy to modern audiences. Sometimes, though, I felt that a very slightly slower pace would heighten the play's poignancy.
The play's 10 other parts are, likewise, capably played and Mary Greet, notably, turns on a great comic performance as Myrtle, the flirtatiously ''refained'' woman in charge of refreshments.
Still Life is a wonderful period piece, taking the audience back to the conventions and attitudes of the 1930s, and especially the class distinctions, gender roles and moral standards of the time. The running time is just over an hour.
Still Life
Globe Theatre
Thursday, April 17
- Barbara Frame.
