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Worcester House House Play 2008

‘A Separate Peace’

Worcester House has a reputation for staging melodramatic feminist tragic-dramas with a penchant for the depressing and suicidal. However, I was pleasantly surprised when Jane Barnfield sauntered onto stage to command the audience as a comic and heart-warming character. Around this towering performance the rest of the cast orbited, and Emma Darrington’s matronly allocutions with Ms Brown smacked of authoritative humour. A host of young actresses provided mature and thoughtful responses to sometimes difficult roles, playing off the eccentricity of Jane Barnfield with aplomb; of this number the light relief of Tlamelo Setshwaelo and Zoë Ward are worthy of particular credit.

Nevertheless, although Krystyna Molony had captured the stage with a beautiful directorial eye, at times a lack of confidence from cast and crew let her vision sink. The short and snappy scenes made the most of an excellent adaptation but I was often aware of confusion in the lighting box. However, the telephone calls, divulging certain key plot points, were an inspired dramatic convention and the pass-the-parcel set provided colour in a well-decorated stage even if the artistic style of Ms Brown moved from an emulation of Constable to some post-modernist Picasso.

All this said, although ‘A Separate Peace’ had its flaws, and a somewhat unsatisfying ending, it was light entertainment with a message seldom seen in the House Play Festival. Neither taking themselves too seriously, nor dismissing the more subtle elements of the play with flippancy, Worcester House have created something watchable and, at times, captivating.

Enjoyable, informative, comic.

George Greenbury

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