Theatre
White Liars/Black Comedy
MADC Clubrooms

MADC have managed to make the seamless transition from the jolly Christmas pantomime, to a New Year return to more weighty fare, in the guise of two of Peter Shaffer’s works.

Staged at the Clubrooms in Santa Venera, these timeless pieces of post-war character analysis often come as a combined double bill, with White Liars and Black Comedy exposing two different aspects of how we twist the truth.

In a contemporary scenario, the notion is “post-truth” – alarmingly gaining traction and misleading millions. The focus of these two one-act plays is not only apt but also instructive because it reveals the extent to which we all bend the truth to suit our purposes.

Both plays are eye-openers because they force the audience to face their own fallibility and the potential of falling into the temptation of creating deceptive realities.

The first play in this double bill was White Liars, directed by Stephanie Zammit Borg, featuring a rather verbose set of characters – two friends, Tom, a popular rock musician, and Frank, his manager, who visit Baroness Sophie Lemberg, a fortune teller in a forsaken seaside town on the east coast of England.

Twisting the truth to suit your needs and create a better version of your life, at least in the public’s perception, is nothing new.

However, being the onlooker of an unfolding web of lies which each one of the three characters weave around each other, gives the audience a completely different perspective on how our falsehoods affect the behaviour of the people we are closest to.

Both plays are eye-openers because they force the audience to face their own fallibility and the potential of falling into the temptation of creating deceptive realities

Audrey Scerri’s portrayal of fortune teller Lemberg was particularly praiseworthy because she not only captured the bohemian aspect of the mysterious woman but because she delivered her lines with sharp dramatic timing and the right kind of theatrical flourish which showcased both Lemberg’s pride and hidden vulnerability as a fraud.

It is not her act as a fortune teller as much as her personal history which is fraudulent and fraught with the sardonic frustrations of a woman trapped in a life she longs to escape.

Rock star Tom has his own agenda to push forward and Rambert Attard gave a solid interpretation in spite of a slightly inconsistent accent. His relationship with manager Frank, played sensitively and skilfully by Jonathan Dunn, is supposed to be friendly but each man has brought the other to Lemberg under false pretences, and Frank has several unresolved issues which require analysis.

Stephen Oliver as Colonel Melkett and Francesca Briffa as Miss Furnival in Black Comedy.

Thus the lighthearted fortune telling session transforms into a psychosocial discussion and as Dunn’s poised and collected Frank unravels, Lemberg learns more about Tom and allows her cynical, dry humour to break down her own façade.

And façades are precisely the same kind of barrier which the characters in Black Comedy have to deal with when struggling sculptor Brindsley Miller (Jovan Pisani) decides to improve his chances of getting a new commission by increasing the appearance of his respectability.

Brindsley steals his neighbour Harold’s (Joe Depasquale) furniture with the help of his fiancée Carol (Kate Decesare) to impress millionaire George Bamberger (Alan Attard) and Carol’s snobbish father, Colonel Melkett (Stephen Oliver).

Brindsley and Carol do not, however, take into account the fact that their evening is going to be complicated by a power cut and the appearance of upstairs neighbour Miss Furnival (Francesca Briffa) as well as his ex-girlfriend Clea (Joanna Jebaili).

Add Daniel Walters’s electricity company repairman, and you have a recipe for delightful 1960s farce – the best of its kind.

Franco Rizzo’s direction was very well attuned to the constraints of the small stage and made the most of this physical comedy’s very complex blocking on the stage.

The cast had great dynamics, with Pisani’s bumbling Brindsley well-matched by Decesare’s jolly old-boarding schoolgirl type; while Briffa gave a fun performance as a prim middle-aged lady who balanced Oliver’s loud and brash military man very well. The latter’s bark is worse than Depasquale’s bite, as a delicate china shop owner who is built like a horse.

Working on a clever and extremely complex lighting strategy, the play relied heavily on backstage work as well as stage actors and the fact that they pulled off this piece so seamlessly is admirable in itself.

It is a delightful romp through a genre which will never lose its appeal and its ability to make people laugh.

This Shaffer double bill starts off on a strong pitch due to the complex nuances of White Liars and allows the audience to relax and truly enjoy the show with the much lighter Black Comedy to end the evening on a high.

This is definitely one to watch this weekend.

■ Peter Shaffer’s double bill White Liars/Black Comedy is being staged at the MADC Clubrooms in Santa Venera on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 8pm.