Stirling performances, dodgy accents, a stunning set and gorgeous millinery.
Clifford Odets wrote 'Rocket to the Moon' in 1938 and it has a heightened, almost cliched style of dialogue. The characters seem to comprise of a check list of stereotypes but this limitation is knowing as if the writer, the characters and the audience are all in on the joke. And the jokes are good. While the play loses pace on some occasions, mostly when the women aren't on stage, it does produce solid laughs throughout. It's the drama that sometimes falters especially when it comes to the periphery of men who share the floor of the office building.
Acting honours go to Jessica Raine who manages to make the astonishingly simple Cleo - so simple, in fact, you can't believe it isn't an act - likeable rather than slappable. Joseph Millson as Ben has a great collection of dumb, empty smiles and Nicholas Woodeson is relishing the brutal honesty of Mr. Prince. Poor Keeley Hawes seems to draw the short straw with the hard Mrs. Stark. She only has a couple of occasions where she can make the role sympathetic but does get the best hats. Even if some of the accents wobble a bit all the performances are first rate.
The Lyttleton impresses once again with the quality of the stagecraft on display. Nobody could fault the care and detail in Anthony Ward's set and Mark Henderson's lighting. The overpowering heat of a June 1930's New York office is stunningly realised. The characters nervous tic like trips to the water cooler completely justified in such an oppressive setting.
With it's oven-like backdrop, sexual tension and heightened language there is something of the Tennessee Williams about the play although this one only reaches a simmer rather than a rolling boil.
Bill Count: 4
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