Shaw and LaBute are as unlikely a pairing as their characters
...though their marriage runs much smoother.
by Christian Baines
@XtianBaines
Bernard Shaw’s Overruled and Nail LaBute’s Romance are both plays about the emergence of truth within relationships. So with that said, here’s another truth: I absolutely and unequivocally loathe fidelity dramas, only because too often, I find them insufferably earnest, preachy, naive, predictable, presumptuous and in a contemporary context... just plain untruthful.
But get a good one – or two, in this case – in the hands of a bold director and a great cast, and the results can be theatrical dynamite.
As to be expected from Shaw and LaBute, Overruled and Romance take the subject in radically different directions. The first is a delightful farce in which the lines of two marriages cross over (Inexplicably in the same hotel room... This is Shaw. Try not to think too hard.). The overly-mothered Mr Lunn (Kelly Penner) has taken great delight in making love to Mrs Juno (Caitlin Stewart), blissfully unaware that she is a married woman – or that Mr Juno (Amos Crawley) has taken similar liberties with Mrs Lunn (Meghan Swaby). Cue the brief confrontation in the name of Englishman’s honour, embodied here in some gloriously silly physical comedy from Crawley, and a stream of one liners that the four players fire off with obvious and infectious joy. Penner in particular, seems born to play British Farce. His toasting Mr Juno as the latter warms up to fight him for his wife’s honor? Masterstroke.
