Written worlds

The Letter Writer
Circa Theatre, Wellington, 7 – 21 March 2010

Courtesy is a dying art. During the production, four phones went off (one twice) and there were two latecomers who shuffled noisily in after the play (one hour and forty minutes with no interval) had started. Apparently the art of letter-writing is also moribund. Mr Rouvesquen (Peter Hambleton) is a professional who helps people become more erudite although, with world-weary cynicism, he also tries to dissuade them from using his services.

From the beginning the tone is unsettled – comedy sits alongside something infinitely more sinister. The sliding doors and panels form a cosy and well-appointed office but they also create hiding places and darkened corners for fraught departures; the mood heightened by dramatic music (Stephen Gallagher) and tight lighting (Jennifer Lal). The scenes flow seamlessly into one another and techincal cues are often taken from musical notes rather than lines of dialogue, negating the importance of the spoken word.

Rouvesquen has a number of customers to whom he explains that words can both clarify and obfuscate. Asked to write speeches and letters for all occasions he has a price list in which ‘weddings are situated between baptisms and funerals, just above love letters – those are obsolete’.

With wonderful indecision Tim Gordon plays Mr Ralph who wants a father-of-the-bride speech, afraid that he will shame his daughter because he hasn’t mastered the words. Rouvesquen asks Ralph to speak naturally so that he can see the sort of man he is. “I need to assess your oratory abilities so that I don’t render you a Socrates in gumboots.” He is instructed to stop rambling, to eliminate gestures, and cut to the witty stuff without waffling. Clearly this is great advice for playwrights too, and Juliet O’Brien has taken it to heart with dialogue that is both precise and loaded with meaning.

Another client, Mrs Balia (a delightfully uptight Helen Moulder) requests an erudite codicil to her will, setting out the ‘whys and wherefores’ of who gets what. She is concerned that ‘unexplained wills create misunderstanding’, which she is anxious to avoid. It seems that ritual is very important and words are part of procedure. However, Rouvesquen abhors the absurdities of polite language – phatic communication – and speech patterns, pronunciation and grammar.

He likes poetry, wine and music; hedonistic pleasures. When he is asked, “Are you alcoholic?” he replies complacently, “It’s possible.” He listens to music, which “enthuses your thoughts”, but it is always the same piece performed by different artists as he searches for perfection as the author imagined it. When he later descends into an alcohol-induced insanity, it is both chilling and seductive.

Into this slightly ridiculous and aesthetic world intrudes the refreshingly earnest Lansko, (Benoit Blanc), a refugee from a totalitarian state who wants to express his love for Leila (Anne Bardot), the girl he left behind and apply for political asylum and citizenship. To help with his powers of description, Rouvesquen gives Lansko a wine appreciation lesson; he explains that if you describe something with your imagination and your words, it gives you a new appreciation of the thing. While trying to explain the appeal to the senses, the dialogue revels caustically in humorous humbug.

Words may be what we use to explain, but they are poor substitutes for emotion. The clearest indication of Rouvesquen’s feelings is when he guides Lansko’s hand, tenderly holding a pen to shape his signature. The scene between Lansko and Leila is touching and wordless as they huddle and snuggle beneath a tarpaulin. Fear is evoked through glances and movement that have nothing to do with words. Gordon also plays Enrix, a postman with cipplingly crude Tourette's. He cannot speak to others without swearing, but he can deliver their words in silence.

But words can also lie, pretend and hide things you would rather not see. When Rouvesquen learns something that he attempts to conceal from Lansko, you wonder at his motives, which can only have disastrous consequences. There is much that these characters would rather not face squarely and the denouement comes sideways from out of the shadows; harsh and unexpected. Some things will simply not remain hidden.