Review of ‘The Cherry Orchid’: “The sleeping bud”

The Drayton Arms Theatre welcomes the London premiere of Broken Gods Productions’ latest comedy, dealing with the most surreal situation at an everyday man’s home. Guillermo Nazara shares his views on the show, to let us know if its crazy narrative features all the elements to “cheh-kov”.

What happens when an unexpected visitor disrupts the peacefulness of a man living with OCD? Well, certainly you could not wish for things to go smooth, but perhaps we could try for them to be… as good as it gets… See what I’ve done there? Huh? Huh? Oh, just leave it! But leave it in a perfectly straight line. And switch the lights on and off 5 times before you go. Sorry – I’m very easily influenced by all the fiction I watch. Like when I went to see Hocus Pocus and I spent a week talking like Winifred. For some reason, people didn’t find it as funny when I did the same with the Touret syndrome lady from Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo – *SSHOLES (just a harmless quote…).

Let’s get down to business… to defeat the huns… Alright, I’ll quit it now. Here comes a new comedy dealing with a young lad obsessed with his little blossoming friend (it’s not a sexual pun, I swear!) and a professional assassin escaping from the fate he’s procured for others in the past. What can possibly go wrong?! What?! In all fairness, that’s an excellent premise for an absurd, over-the-top farce that could you put you on edge for over an hour (seriously, seek psychological attention… well, okay, I must confess I’d like that too…). But as much as its promising start sets up a rather high expectation, none of those hopes are sadly realized throughout what, in the end, turns out to be a rather unfulfilling piece of narrative.

Written by Calum McArthur, the script presents us with a continuous roster of insanely extreme situations – all of them, potentially funny, but for some reason unable to do the trick when they finally unravel. The cause for this issue may reside in a lack of organic pacing: though the dialogue still flaunts some general flow, many lines end up sounding too artificial – giving the impression that they were conceived for the page, instead of being spoken out loud; and for that matter, that they’ve not been tried out enough to ensure its credibility.

In addition, despite the intentional goofy approach of its humour (something that, if done properly, could actually be totally hysterical), mostly all of its jokes struggle to trigger much else than a subtle smirk, either because they are too predictable or because they were not the right element to begin with. A similar problem can be spotted in its plot, which regardless of how senseless it’s supposed to be, its unnecessary twist during the finale tends to spoil the recount’s overall tone, rather than bringing any valuable contribution to its effectiveness whatsoever.

As for the cast, the company makes an admirable effort at keeping the machinery in motion, but wistfully none of their hard work translates into anything more than compliant appreciation – as their endeavour cannot erase the fact that, regardless of the energy put into the delivery, there’s very little to support when the material itself carries such small weight. Among them, Tom Lane makes the most memorable appearance as the Homeowner, providing intensity as well as nice flecks of likability to his character, while also exuding some natural comedy skills – despite the account preventing those from being truly exploited.

An idea in the making with more probabilities to be salvaged than Trump’s presidential campaign (despite the latter being way more laughable), The Cherry Orchid roots its essence in a fine concept, but misses all the remaining components to let it germinate and, ultimately, grow into the amusing watch it’s intended to be. More wit, pungency and, above all, bitchiness are the key factors to help with its reshaping, and subsequently bring both the play and its audience to a better destination. However foolish it’s supposed to be, the real no-brainer is that any droll show requires high doses of intelligence.

The Cherry Orchid plays at London’s Drayton Arms Theatre until 28 September. Tickets are available on the following link.

By Guillermo Nazara