Word: pubs
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...pub scenes that shine especially, crackling with fast-paced hilarity and several fine performances: Daphne de Marneffe as the daffy yet sensitive Florence, Charles Mills as the meek, bewildered Brown, Randy Marshall as the meek, bewildered Brown, Randy Marshall as the less-than-Able seaman, and, best of all, David Frutkoff as the manipulative Harry. After some initial fumbling with lines, Frutkoff takes charge (as he should) and controls the comedy with exquisite timing. As Harry, he is neverill-intentioned, willing to take gullible George for a ride, but stopping when his delusion gets out of hand. Yet the irrepressible...
...shillings a week provided by his rambunctious 18-year old daughter Linda, who works in Fancy Goods at Woolworth's. He refuses to collect unemployment compensation; that is for the masses, not for an inventor. With a new ten-bob note every "Meatless Saturday," George heads for the pub, where the locals indulge his fantasies. He is a man lost in the past, reading his daughter's old fairy tales, living in the days when the navy was strong and he and "Lindy" would go for walks in the park...
...George has had enough this time, and he's left for good--a free man, armed with his latest invention, an envelope with gum on both sides of the flap. At the pub, Harry the horseplayer and the dopey seaman Able (from the new navy) play on George's wild dreams until they convince him that he, with Harry, can revolutionize the envelope industry. Soon George derails again, wanders into the past in a monologue, and we return to the Riley home, a place where, as George explains, "I give nothing, I gain nothing, it is nothing...
These transitions from the Riley home to the pub (a wonderfully dilapidated one, designed by Derek McLane), from disturbing reality to comic illusion, occur smoothly under Maddy DeLone's crisp direction. DeLone makes full use of the intimate confines of the Winthrop House JCR, organizing the human traffic with all the aplomb of a Back Bay traffic cop. A Stoppard play needs technical gadgetry: for true comic effect, Enter a Free Man should have a "Rule Britannia" clock, a few portraits of the Queen, BBC radio droning in the background, and "indoor rain." The Winthrop production manages well without them...
...PLAY SAGS during the home scenes at the beginning of the second act, however. Part of the blame must go to Stoppard, who is clearly more at home with the frothy pub banter than with the unfolding human drama. But there's not enough oppressiveness here, not enough love wrestling with the frustration. We have no sense of a 25-year relationship between husband and wife, or of what must have been deep affection between father and daughter. As a result, much of the poignancy of George Riley's plight goes by the wayside. It is an unfortunate letdown...