Play It Again Sam

****

“Here’s looking at you kid.” “Round up the usual suspects.”

Casablanca was, like Hamlet, chock full of quotations – and Woody Allen makes good use of them in this early masterpiece of wit and pathos.

The stage version first appeared in 1969 and when it was filmed in 1972, it kick started Allen’s long film career, garnering him more Oscar nominations than any other writer in Hollywood history.

As the audience enter the theatre, director, John Plews sets the scene by showing newsreels of 1969 and when the lights go down we see the final scene of The Maltese Falcon starring Humphrey Bogart, idol of film reviewer Allan Felix, who has just been abandoned by a wife bored with watching films and longing to spend her time skiing- naked.

We are allowed from time to time into Allen’s obsessive/neurotic imagination as the company act out scenarios of what might happen, what did happen and what he wants to happen. These mostly involve young women and Josephine Kiernan and Felicity Russell between them play eight widely differing roles.

Some of these are girls found for him by his friends. Dick and Linda are trying to help him find another bride, but his confidence is so shaken that he ruins every encounter by his nervousness.

The acting throughout is faultless and each character is funny in its own right. Tim Frost is the nearest thing to Woody Allen that it is possible to be. He is ably backed by Amy Bailey as Linda and James Kermack as Dick, with frequent appearances from Shaun Stone as the imaginary Bogart to whom he runs for advice on how to handle women.

My favourite exchange as he tries to secure a date with a depressive intellectual:
“What are you doing Saturday night?”
“Committing suicide”
“What about Friday?”

The brilliant set by Suzi Lombardelli must be mentioned and the evocative music – Rodgers and Hart’s “Manhattan” and of course “As Time Goes by” – the song that Sam actually played.

What’s shorter than Woody Allen’s height? The first act of this entertaining fringe production of Woody’s famous stage play.

Don’t let that put you off, for truly great things reveal themselves throughout Act 2 and 3. For example: superb acting, a stellar set, witty lines, laughs and pathos and a tale of the human condition.
For those not familiar with Allen’s play or film, the action of Play It Again, Sam takes place in a New York apartment on West 10th Street in 1969 (the same year as the original play opened on Broadway, starring Allen and Diane Keaton).

The story revolves around Jewish Allan Felix (Tim Frost), a nerdy and neurotic film critic whose love life is in tatters when his thrill-seeking wife (Josephine Kiernan) walks out on him. Watching the movie ‘Casablanca’ (several quotes and misquotes in Allen’s play stem from this classic drama noir), he dreams of being just as cool as Humphrey Bogart. Minutes later, the ghost of Bogey materialises in order to help Allan secure prospective new dates and a possible new wife – with equally hilarious and disastrous consequences!

From then on, we witness James Kermack as Allan’s best friend Dick Christie playing matchmaker in vein, while Amy Bailey is a revelation as his loyal yet disillusioned wife Linda. Felicity Russell has the challenging task of portraying various new love interests while Shaun Stone’s ‘Bogey’ does a great job of being there ‘without being there’, a shadow figure who semi-mumbles his perfectly timed one-liners in best and stoic Bogart tradition.
However, it’s leading man Tim Frost who manages to bring the right amount of gravitas to his otherwise bumbling and nervous character – he’s full of sexual fantasies but utterly hopeless when it comes to deliver even the most simple of chat-up lines. Frost neither impersonates nor caricatures Woody Allen but simply plays Allan Felix in his own way. By doing so, he makes his character believable and turns him into a real person we all can relate to.

While the 1st Act is surprisingly short and leaves one wondering where characters and pace are going, the rest is on the right pace and perfectly flows, with all the performers interacting in tune.
A big round of applause must also go to Suzi Lombardelli’s exquisite set (the apartment is crammed full with classic movie posters and objects scattered about), while director John Plews managed a great (and surely not easy!) job in putting this quality cast and production team together (not to mention acquiring the rights to the play). Play It Again, Sam is a real treat not just for Woody Allen and Humphrey Bogart fans but for all those who appreciate a good night out at the theatre.

This revival of Woody Allen’s 1969 Broadway play about a neurotic New York film critic and journalist whose wife has just divorced him is a delight. Tim Frost as Allan, the role Allen wrote for himself, may look rather like him but he makes the part his own. He is well matched by Amy Bailey, lovely as his best friend’s wife Linda who, with her property-dealing, business-obsessed husband, is trying to set the nerd up with a girl. While Allan’s wife (Josephine Kiernan) wanted to ride naked on a motor bike through Europe, unfortunate Allan is a man who, though he spent his entire honeymoon in bed, did so with dysentery. Without her he’s a mess.

A succession of newsreel and film clips from Vietnam to Woodstock, Robert Kennedy to Diana Rigg and James Bond set the date as the audience settle (you can compete with your partner in identifying what they all are) to end with a ‘turn off you mobiles’ title that’s a change from this theatre’s traditional announcement. From then on director John Plews keeps the comic action fast running, slowing down just a little to allow romance to almost poke its head in as Allan and Amy find themselves increasingly attracted.

Suzie Lombardelli’s set offers a West 10th Street apartment plaster with movie posters. Its layout is an architectural oddity, but it works very efficiently for the pop up or pop in appearances of Allan’s ex-wife and of his adviser on women, none less than slouche-hatted Humphrey Bogart, whenever Allan’s memory or imagination need them, which is often. Shaun Stone is a wonderfully one-dimensional Bogart and James Kermack is Amy’s preoccupied husband, always ringing the office on arrival to say where he can be contacted next.

Felicity Russell plays a succession of girls that Allan tries to date, in life or in his imagination, most of them don’t bite his line but with one his luck seems to be changing, and Kiernan doubles as some others, including a crazy disco dancer.

The gestures are bold and neither text or production is particularly subtle: Allan is dysfunctional so the set is littered with his dropped clothing, but the timing is right, its heart is in the right place and the laughs keep on coming. Enjoy it!

Who is Woody Allen? Is he that nervous, witty, Jewish Film maker from the lower East Side? Or is he rather a character destined to play a parody of himself, a supporting actor in the film of his own life? Play it Again, Sam debuted on Broadway in 1969 was a run-away success, and was eventually made into a film. Allen wrote and starred in the main role as Allan Felix (Tim Frost), a neurotic, self deprecatory bag of nerves, a projection of Allen’s personality and vehicle for his switch blade wit which couldn’t backfire.

We follow Allan Felix (Tim Frost), a film critic who spends all his days watching silver screen classics. Nancy, (Josephine Kiernan), his wife leaves him to find a ‘real man,’ preferably one with a motorcycle and long hair. Felix’s friends, Dick (James Kermack) and his wife, Linda (Amy Bailey) take it upon themselves to lift him out of his misery by introducing him to the leggy, Sharon (Felicity Russell). Things go typically tits up for Allan, despite receiving advice on how to seduce women from Humphrey Bogart (Shaun Stone), who begins making cameo appearances in his life. As we enjoy his excruciating blunders and exquisite one- liners we discover that the girl of his fantasies might be sitting right under his nose.

Tim Frost is just the right blend of spluttering nerves and babbling energy, excelling at evoking Allan’s acerbic wit. His Jewish lilt savours Allan’s accent and brings the flavour of fast talking Manhattan to the leafy borough of Highgate. Frost excels at comic timing and his cringe worthy antics never fail to amuse as he kicks over his coffee table and collapses over his record player, generally acting the klutz. His relationship with Keirnan is amusingly desperate, as she struts across the fantastic set, all bubblegum chic and nasally New York accent in a crop top and tight jeans, she commands his lust and throws it back in his face. Bailey as Linda, compulsively tidies Allan’s apartment, acting the dreamy home-maker, obedient to the role Dick has given her. Bailey demonstrates a cool elegance through her fine poise as she vividly expresses Linda’s emotional integrity with her yearning eyes that long for the passion Dick denies her. Kermack as her husband, plays a slick, arrogant business man of the 1950’s, who talks of emotions in terms of investments and conveys well, the innate comedy of a man who takes himself so seriously he has to update his colleagues over the telephone every other minute about where is going to be that afternoon. A profoundly prophetic insight into how society would eventually evolve. Twitter anybody?

Allan’s hallucinations of Bogart are brilliantly handled, as scenes from his favourite movies begin to infiltrate his life and reflect his own situation. Hudson has the lights turn steely blue when Bogart enters, creating a sense of a shift from reality to the world of Allan’s imagination. When Stone appears as Bogart from Casablanca in a trench-coat and trilby, he bestows his virile one-liners in an amusing “schmokin hot” accent, with a neat spareness.

Life imitates Art in Play it Again, Sam, especially the classic movies of the ‘40’s and ‘50’s and the play are testament to the influence these films have exerted over Woody Allen. Plews’s excellent direction allows Allan’s fantasies of the silver screen to come alive in fantastic interludes, when Kendall – Bush’s dramatic film music, strikes up and the actors engage in famous encounters from these timeless classics in the ubiquitous apparel of the time. All that’s missing are the plumes of smoke left behind by a disappearing train.

Suzi Lombardelli’s set is a brilliant recreation of a Manhattan apartment, which has been painstakingly designed with a great deal of love and attention. Classic movie posters decorate the walls while clothes and takeaway cartons are discarded on the floor. A spiral staircase creates a second level, and is used inventively for the club scene and Allan’s feverish film watching. Lombardelli ingeniously uses the blinds to project film scenes on to and it also allows a backdrop of Manhattan to dominate the set, painted onto the wall behind. The city is a living presence in the play and an important reminder of Woody Allen’s inextricable relationship with New York, as much as his fondness for women.

Play it Again, Sam, is laugh out loud funny and will have you in stitches. Woody Allen is without a doubt a comic genius. His ability to pen witty one liners which take their humour from his own inadequacies and neuroses appeals to us all, not only for their self deprecating qualities, but also, his talent to create realistic characters who we can sympathise with, but at the same time laugh at. Plews has done a fantastic job of doing justice to the material, which despite its age is as vigorous now as it was in its heyday.

This Woody Allen play was first performed in – where else – New York in 1969, but it has been a long while since it was last staged in London. On this hugely enjoyable showing, though, it’s hard to work out why it hasn’t become a director’s favourite. Funny and fast-paced, it boasts one zingy one-liner after another, and offers director, actors and audience alike the chance to have a hell of a lot of fun.

Perhaps it is difficult to find actors willing to step into Woody Allen’s shoes. He originally played the lead, Allan Felix, and he’s a quintessential Woody character: neurotic, nervy, and self-analysing but also quick-witted and intelligent. We first meet film critic Allan huddled away in his bedroom, mouthing along to lines from his favourite movie, The Maltese Falcon, and trying to avoid the reality of the divorce he’s just had to finalise. As the play goes on, he attempts to find romance once again, helped out by his best friend’s wife Linda, whom – inevitably – he ends up falling for.

It must have been impossible for the man who has here taken on the role – Tim Frost – to read Allan’s lines without hearing Woody Allen’s voice while doing so, so he deserves huge credit for delivering them with immaculate timing but without ever descending into a straight-up impersonation. Allen is definitely evoked, but Frost’s performance is such that you never find yourself comparing him overly with the “real” thing. Dejected and lethargic one moment, fizzing with nervous energy the next, it’s a performance that relies on great physicality as much as the capacity to deliver a gag, and Frost proves himself more than up to the task. He keeps the energy levels high and the audience onside even though he’s playing someone who is, ultimately, a remarkably self-absorbed character.

It’s not Frost’s show alone and he is ably supported by the rest of the cast. Amy Bailey makes Linda a warm and sympathetic, someone whom Allan can’t help but fall in love with, and while her work-obsessed husband Dick could easily be two-dimensional, James Kermack ensures there’s something for the audience to engage with. Perhaps most impressive of all, however, is just how much Shaun Stone manages to get out of his role as Bogart, the actor who steps out of the screen to help Allan win and woo his ‘dames’. He may have precious few lines, but his questionable ‘treat ‘em mean, keep ‘em keen’ advice is delivered with deadpan brilliance.

Indeed, director John Plews has elicited uniformly enjoyable performances from his cast, and he’s added some neat visual jokes, too. And the production looks great; the large performance space is plastered with movie posters and littered with TV dinner cartons to recreate Allan’s messy New York apartment.

In fact, the only real problems here are with the play rather than the production. In this effort at least, Allen displays a surer hand with comedy than he does with pathos, meaning the key emotional scenes don’t quite match the impact of those which have been written purely for laughs. But it hardly matters. The gags are great, the performances strong and, perhaps most importantly, it’s simply impossible to watch without smiling.

Woody Allen’s play Play It Again Sam got a standing ovation at the Gatehouse in Highgate, London last night.
The first stage production opened on Broadway in 1969 starring Woody Allen and Diane Keaton. Play it Again Sam revolves around New Yorker Allan Felix who has just been through a messy divorce.

This neurotic Jewish film critic tries to resurrect his sex life – with little success. Obsessed by the movies, he calls on Humphrey Bogart for help. Bogey then gives Allen advice on the women in his life. The result is a three way love triangle which takes its inspiration from Casablanca

The play opened on 20th May in Highgate and will run until June 26th. The comedy is all still there. It may not be Woody Allan, but director John Plews, has found a London Jewish equivalent in Tim Frost, shortish, bespectacled and almost as neurotic. Frost began with Woody Allen’s ghost to contend with, and was overly concerned with the physicality of neurosis, but he left this behind as he moved further into the play, and relaxed into the role.

Amy Bailey, tall, and slender took on the role played by Diane Keaton. Bailey, eased her way slowly into the part and gave the supporting role all it deserved, whilst James Kermack playing her husband was in character from the off. Kermack often cast asa soldier or gangster took on the role of business ‘failed gangster’ with gusto and was able to capture the many transformations of his character with a good sense of comedy.

Josephine Kiernan playing Nancy, the ex wife and several other roles has energy and presence which will take her far. Her charisma began the play in a way that was captivating and was maintained with each subsequent entrance.

Felicity Russell was a chameleon as she invented herself over and over again in every cameo role.

Increasingly funny as the play progressed, what this production lacked in emotional substance was replaced with some magical direction in the second half which gave this production its own identity.

I am sure that this production will improve with each performance and is worth a visit.

ACCORDING to Humphrey Bogart: “There’s no secret, kid. Dames are simple. I’ve never met one that didn’t understand a slap on the mouth or a slug from a .45.”

Not so for Allan Felix (Tim Frost), a 29-year old writer who is mid-divorce, down on his luck and on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Neurotic, nervous and cripplingly self-aware, Allan embarks on a string of shambolic blind dates, guided by his friend Dick (James Kermack) and his sympathetic wife, Linda.

This romantic comedy is classic Woody Allen territory. Inevitably, Allan falls for the kind and sincere Linda (played with poise by Amy Bailey) and faces a dilemma of loneliness and betrayal. The play is peppered with interludes featuring “Humphrey Bogart” (Shaun Stone), whose hammy one-liners contain some of the worst advice imagin­able.

However, the real elephant in the room is Woody himself. The shadow of Allen, who played the part himself in the 1972 film, looms large, and it’s hard not to feel like everything else is mere imitation.

This aside, Frost’s comic timing, masterful accent and convincing physicality result in an authentic performance and carry the show.

Bailey matches him well as the woman of his affections, and the two have a genuinely lovely onstage dynamic.

There’s also an unexpected gag with a trap door, for which I doff my hat to director John Plews.

Not Woody Allen’s best, or the freshest of offerings, but well-acted and worth a visit.