IN A transaction torn from a Mission Impossible plot, an American document has ended up in a Yorkshire coastal resort, having passed through hands in Austria. The document is a Neil Simon comedy, so rarely performed since its 1981 debut in New York that there is no record of a West End production.
As chance would have it, an English company had success with a revival in Vienna, duly sending the script to Stephen Joseph Theatre artistic director Alan Ayckbourn in the belief it warranted a new life.
Ayckbourn in turn brought it to the attention of associate director Laurie Sansom. "It has been a delight to rediscover this hidden gem," says Sansom, and so an act of neglect worthy of Miss Prism at a railway station has come to the happiest of conclusions in Sansom's caring hands.
Like the play, wannabe actress Libby (Laura Doddington) is seeking a fresh start in the 1981 Hollywood of Candice Bergen, Jane Fonda, James Caan and Jack Nicholson. Nineteen, nave and "a little outspoken", she has hitchhiked from New York in pursuit of fame, fortune and the father she has not seen since he abandoned his family 16 years ago.
Libby has his address, she has his humour ("That's about all he left", she says); she knows he is a screenwriter, but she doesn't know what he looks like or even what to call him.
She arrives unannounced at the small West Hollywood bungalow of writer Herb (Bill Champion), rucksack on her back, teenage chip on her shoulder, and first encounters Steffy (Julie Hewlett), a Hollywood make-up artist ticking over in a once-a-week relationship with Herb.
Herb, it emerges, has a problem with commitment, he cannot commit fully to Steffy; he cannot commit himself to taking his sleeping pill until he is sure he is not going to sleep, having put himself through yet another sleepless night and he cannot commit anything to paper on account of his writer's block (a favourite Simon theme). Why did he leave, asks his crushed petal of a daughter. Herb preferred "unattachment" to marriage to a woman he "didn't like very much". Indeed his only permanent relationship is with his orange and lemon trees, one each and each symbolically a substitute for his daughter and son.
This is a tender, frank and charming study of an unlikely, spiky family reunion and the intricacies of the heart, played out against the false-eyelash allure of Hollywood. Champion, such a consistently good actor, works wonderfully well with Laura Doddington's heart-on-her-sleeve Libby. This is her professional stage debut and the Stephen Joseph Theatre has unearthed another gem. Make that two, Doddington and Simon's play.
I Ought To Be In Pictures, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, on various dates in summer repertoire until July 3. Box office: 01723 370541
Updated: 09:47 Friday, May 28, 2004
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