Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Tempo Theatre: Cards On The Table

I don't normally go to Tempo's productions - not a deliberate decision, but I'm a southsider and have to set my limits somewhere - but I was on a ticket-buying spree at the Canberra Theatre recently and Cards On The Table was on offer, and I am of course a freak for Agatha Christie, so I bought a couple of seats on the spur on the moment.  For $25 a head I think it would not have been reasonable to expect to much more.  I had forgotten whodunnit, so the plot was genuinely engaging, if pretty dated.  The sets were fairly basic and not enhanced by visible (and audible) set changes in between scenes (with, for some reason, coloured lights), which sort of broke that whole suspension of disbelief one attempts at the theatre.  Performances were OK, but there were a few line slips and a few actors could certainly have been a little more animated. (And one a little less).  A problem with a dated script is that to really pull it off it needs to be set in context, and a low budget production will have difficulty creating enough atmosphere.  But we enjoyed it.  Plan B was to nip home at interval for Gruen Nation and the Chaser, if it turned out not be any good, and we certainly didn't resort to that.  I might give Tempo another spin in November, for their Tiny Tales.

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