WHEN is an Alan Ayckbourn play not an Alan Ayckbourn play? When it's sort of an Alan Ayckbourn play, but it is equally more like a Victorian parlour game, one where audience members plays very significant parts throughout.
By his own admission, Scarborough's knight of the theatrical realm would react with horror at the prospect of being asked to participate in what these days is fashionably known as "immersive theatre", but nevertheless he has embraced it in what must be the most lighthearted piece he has ever written.
You could call it experimental theatre, but not in an avant-garde, cutting-edge way, more in the way that Ayckbourn has played with theatre form in such pieces as House & Garden, two simultaneous plays performed by the same cast dashing between two auditoria, or Intimate Exchanges, eight plays with one identical opening and 16 possible endings.
They were audacious works, cleverly constructed, yet meaty plays too. Karaoke Theatre Company is neither audacious, nor meaty, Instead, as Ayckbourn said in his interview, "I don’t even consider this as a play but as a party". In other words, it needs to be taken in the spirit it was written, a chance for cast and audience alike to have fun together in an interactive experience.
Jessie Hart in Alan Ayckbourn's Karaoke Theatre Company
The Karaoke Theatre Company is a specially created company where York actress Rachel Caffrey, Louise Shuttleworth, Leigh Symonds, Jessie Hart, Andy Cryer and Sarah Fallon take on the guise of KTC members Karen Drake, Anna Raleigh, Rufus Wellington, Alyssia Cook, Oliver Nelson and Edie Hardy, each with a back story and credits list. You will note their first initial spells out KARAOKE, all except the second K, a company member missing in unfortunate circumstances to be explained later in the show.
After an over-long tennis game with percussive sound effects for ball on racket provided by audience members to loosen up our willingness to take part, the company enacts five vignettes, each in a different theatrical style ranging from a Victorian melodrama to a Scandi-noir murder spoof with dubbed dialogue. Audience involvement ranges from foley-artist sound effects and dubbing the voices to picking a part to play in the second enactment of The Sister.
On the preview night, it all ran to around three hours, in truth too long, but the cast were feeling their way into how the show works, each vignette reliant on one cast member steering the audience volunteers into improvised action. This will speed up show by show, and the tennis warm-up and re-run of The Sister could be trimmed, because otherwise the second half will continue to sag before the magic trick finale.
Something needs to vanish, not only in the trick, to sharpen up the vignettes to the 20 minutes each first envisaged by Ayckbourn if they are all to match the Scandi-standout.
Alan Ayckbourn's Karaoke Theatre Company, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, in summer rep on various dates until October 7. Box office: 01723 370 541 or sjt.uk
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