Heaven Sent showcases a mixture of welcome homecomers and new faces at Chester Little Theatre this week, including company regular Jess Toyne directing her first main house production.
Sébastien Thiéry’s ‘Comme s'il en pleuvait’ (As If it were Raining) was first performed in Paris in 2012, and Nantwich-based translator Charlie Gobbett made this English version of the text which he directed himself in Northwich 3 years ago.
Gobbett describes the play as a ferocious comedy about money and greed, but Toyne goes for quiet subtlety in its early stages, allowing the ridiculousness of the situation to gradually ramp up as the play unfolds.
Hospital anaesthetist Bryan and school headteacher Leslie are a fairly average couple living a fairly average life in a fairly average apartment, until one day, inexplicably, cash begins appearing in their living room. After the first couple of deposits, amounting to a thousand or so pounds, they decide to question their Polish cleaner Kasia, who they suspect may be trying to make up for the shortfall in her work, but Kasia is horrified at what she misunderstands as an accusation of theft.
When Bryan, unable to figure out what else to do with the ever-increasing piles of cash, decides to go on an extravagant shopping spree, Leslie is horrified, but just as she is coming round to the idea, they are interrupted by a visit from their mysterious new neighbour Mr Broot. The second act spirals into the typical style of French farce that the play has its roots in, with mistaken motives and crazed accusations, and the connection between Mr Broot and the money (if there is one) becoming less and less clear as time goes by, until the final deluge of a denouement.
Tracy Ross, playing Leslie, makes her second appearance on these boards, and she ably negotiates the mixture of level headedness and confusion that besets her as her husband loses all sense of reason. Charles Belanger makes his stage debut in the role of Bryan, and he makes a good fist of what is a somewhat tricky part to balance. Originally from the US, his soft transatlantic tones are maybe where the performance lacks some of the ferocity suggested by the author. While he does aim in the direction of manic as the second act progresses, he could perhaps turn up the energy in his delivery in places.
Breezing into the scene with her tabard and cleaning caddy, Bara Stankova is Kasia, and she throws herself headlong into her part as the utterly bewildered cleaner. Her barrage of defensiveness is perfectly matched with her air of complete innocence, and she elevates every scene she is part of.
We saw Jac Wardle’s skill at deadpan comic delivery and timing with his Officer Crabtree in ‘Allo ‘Allo last season, and he brings the same finely tuned wit to Mr Broot, the gun-toting, axe-wielding neighbour who believes he is being robbed. It is his arrival that really gets the ball rolling in the craziness department.
The English text feels like a somewhat slight treatment of the material, with some of the dialogue lacking in punch, but Toyne and her cast mine it well for laughs, and it is an engaging evening of comedy that looks good on Keith Long’s neatly decorated, cash-strewn set, which keeps the stage crew busy between scenes.
Bara Stankova, Charles Belanger,
Tracy Ross and Jac Wardle in Heaven Sent - Picture by Stephen
Cain
This review was originally written for publication by Good News Liverpool
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