Daytona - Theatre Royal Norwich
A highly recommended play with some compelling performances and wide reaching themes.
Oliver Cotton’s play begins with a cosy domestic scene. It is 1986 in a Brooklyn apartment and elderly Jewish couple Elli (Maureen Lipman) and Joe (Harry Shearer) are practising for a ballroom dance competition the next night. They bicker, discuss dinner arrangements and fuss over what they are going to wear. But from this quaint beginning unfurls a drama about redemption and atonement that touches on both personal betrayals and the historical atrocities of World War Two.
The mood first shifts when Joe’s brother Billy returns to the couple’s life thirty years after disappearing with a large sum of money from the family business. He claims to be a happily married man, retired after a successful career in real estate. But his shambling manic presence (played with compelling energy by the playwright himself) quickly lets the audience know that all is not what it seems. So we watch with a growing sense of dread as Billy recounts his disastrous holiday in Daytona Florida. It is an experience that takes him on a collision course with the trio’s past as detainees of the Nazi regime. Billy’s arrival also brings to the fore an old rivalry between the brothers as well as a residual romantic tension with Elli. Oliver Cotton’s script certainly has a wide scope and for the most part combines dramatic action and lighter moments effectively, though I felt a potentially devastating ending was unfortunately underplayed.
So many roles for older actors seem uninspired, ‘grandparent’ parts quoting homespun wisdom or acting in a symbolic function as reminders of ageing or death. It is a refreshing experience to see three older actors portray nuanced characters with vivid emotional and sexual concerns. Maureen Lipman in particular delivers an affecting monologue that completely draws the audience in to her world and throughout the play she offers a perfectly pitched performance that straddles comedy and deep-felt emotion.
A highly recommended play with some compelling performances and wide reaching themes.
