Attack and counter-attack

Gina Gionfriddo is an American playwright whose Becky Shaw (Masquerade at St James Cavalier) had made her widely known, for it testifies to her considerable skill as an author of constantly arresting dialogue, and as a creator of characters who are either at war with themselves or who disclose themselves gradually as the play develops.

Played superbly by Toni Attard, Max is very intelligent but makes the mistake of thinking he knows it all- Paul Xuereb

The overall tone of the play is comic but not uproarious, but the main role of Max may often elicit laughs or smiles without being funny in himself.

He is an intelligent and very successful businessman who was adopted by a wealthy couple, parents of Suzanna, recently married to Andrew. The plot really gets going when Suzanna and Andrew set up a blind date between Max and the title character, Becky, a somewhat lonely 35-year-old employed in the Andrew’s office.

The matching of the two is disastrous, for Max not only shies off emotional entanglements but is also put off by Becky’s record of failures in life and work.

Moreover, the date is truly ruined when Max is robbed at gunpoint and the greatly upset Max ends up having sex with Becky.

We have earlier learned that Max and Suzanna have had passionate feelings for each other and as the play develops we see that for Max, Suzanna is the only woman he can truly care for. Becky was just an unfortunate episode in his life.

When he refuses to get in touch with Becky again, the girl makes a half-hearted attempt at suicide, and Andrew, who clearly finds her attractive, finds the element of pity too strong for him and moves in with her. Will this lead Max to stake his claim on Suzanna?

The last scenes lead to constant shifts in feeling and their consequences, and the final results are determined by the intervention of a hitherto secondary character, Susan, Suzanna’s mother.

Max has been trying to intervene in Susan’s finances so far with scantsuccess. Susan may be middle-agedand suffering from Multiple Sclerosisbut she has a mind of her own, a toyboy called Lester, and is able to speak her mind with a forcefulness matching Max’s own.

Gionfriddo tries to show again and again that people are either ignorant of their real selves, or are capable of acting in clear contrast with their normal beliefs if the occasion is strong enough.

This comes out most clearly in the development of Max but also in that of Susanna as well as in Andrew.

Played superbly by Toni Attard, Max is very intelligent but makes the mistake of thinking he knows it all and is never bothered by the cruelty he may be inflicting on people like Becky or on Susan who, however, turns out to be a match for him.

His contempt for the concept of love disappears when he sees the possibility of a long-term relationship with Suzanna, and there is no lie or half-truth he will not tell so long as he can detach her from Andrew.

This is a cold-blooded man who gets what he deserves when the woman he loves, and who is certainly fond of him, realises it is Andrew she truly needs.

Attard brings out all the character’s black qualities, but he also manages to make us feel just a little pity for him when we realise he has lost the only woman he can truly love.

Laura Best’s Suzanna starts off weakly, her voice suggesting a dumb doll in her first scene, but as the character develops in the plot, Suzanna begins to show a certain strength, reaching a splendid climax in the second act with her bringing back of Andrew into the marriage fold, and her dressing down of Max.

Becky Shaw is the most devious of the characters. Though she says she comes of a good family that disowned her after she had affairs with two black men, we begin to doubt if like Thackeray’s Becky Sharp, she does not tend to make up her past, and when after Max’s contemptuous rebuff she slashes her wrist, Max may be right in saying she has just done what teenagers tend to do to attract sympathy.

Isabel Warrington brings out Becky’s different moods and ploys but makes sure that the audience is never taken in by her.

Her moment of triumph comes when, a wicked grin on her face, she tells the others the damaging statement Max made at the police station, a statement that puts paid to his chances of ever having Suzanna.

Malcolm Galea fleshes out Andrew, the good husband who speedily regrets his little adventure with Becky and runs back when his wife summons him with a warm embrace. Sue Cantlebury’s Sue, the mother, brings out the character’s quiet authority in the two scenes where she appears, and dominates the play’s climactic scene.

Anthony Bezzina’s direction keeps the play flowing, but the long second scene in act one needs to move faster.

On the other hand, the various scenes in act two, in which the plot moves forward very interestingly, never lost my attention.

The only problem here is the scene-changing in blackouts, a tedious proceeding, though I could not but admire the scene-changers’ skill in doing everything so precisely in the dark.

Becky Shaw is showing at St James Cavalier, Valletta, today and Friday to next Sunday.