Before the Party ***

Almeida Theatre, London

EXCERPT: “A 1949 adaptation of a 1926 short story, the production should feel more unexcitingly dated and predictable than it does. Instead, it is fun and frivolous and shows off some feisty performances.”

An adaptation that is based on a short novel by Somerset Maugham, Before the Party centres around Laura, a glamorous young woman who plans to announce her engagement to her new beau, despite having been recently widowed. Her family’s concern for this audacious flouting of social norms becomes further complicated by Laura’s revelations of her previous husband’s unsalacious appetites, and the hand she had in his death. A 1949 adaptation of a 1926 short story, the production should feel more unexcitingly dated and predictable than it does. Instead, it is fun and frivolous and shows off some feisty performances.

The production is led by a superb Katherine Parkinson, whose nuanced and riveting performance of Laura raises the quality quite considerably. The sophistication and depth of her character portrayal is impressive, with flashes of sparkiness and emotion shining through self-assured composure. Unfortunately, the subtlety of her performance also makes Michelle Terry’s portrayal of Laura’s antithesis, the dowdy spinster sister Kathleen, feel all the more harshly exaggerated. Only three rows away from the front of the stage, Terry seems to shout at us continually, pushing her vocal chords to the maximum of their capacity. Within the intimate Almeida, both her volume and such an overemphatic focus on playing up for laughs felt inappropriate. 

The rest of the cast straddle the balance between these two opposite performances. As an ensemble, they work together well, giving energised performances of vivaciously distinct characters. Stella Gonet as Blanche and Michael Thomas as Aubrey make a wonderful pair, and June Watson and Alex Price support well as Nanny and Laura’s suitor.  Although set in a singular space (precisely mastered by Anna Fleischle), strong directorship from Matthew Dunster prevented the fine cast from ever becoming static and ensured it was constantly fast-paced and entertaining. All in all, an immensely pleasant evening, even if it doesn’t really probe into the social psyche and its concerns are too anachronistic to really resonate.