Emma Rice's "Brief Encounter' in New York (1st review)

This inspired production is much more than an amalgam of Noel Coward's 1936 one-act play, Still Life, and the 1945 British film Brief Encounter, directed by David Lean with a screenplay by Coward. It's an original creation by Emma Rice, director of the Kneehigh Theatre, based in Cornwall, England. Two years ago, it played in London and toured Britain before crossing the pond. I saw it twice last December at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, where it was a huge hit.

Rice's Brief Encounter is a bittersweet romance lightened with wry humor, a pinch of irony and even a bit of puppetry. It expertly blends theater with film, adding some of Coward's most famous songs—"Mad About the Boy," "A Room With a View," "Always"— as well as Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concert, which was the movie's de facto theme song. Brief Encounter has made the transition from off-Broadway to the Great White Way with all of its charm and intimacy intact.

Film aficionados, who treasure the classic movie starring Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard, won't be disappointed by the performances of Hannah Yelland and Tristan Sturrock. They make a handsome couple as the upright, married lovers, Laura and Alec, who meet accidentally in a suburban train station tearoom. They instantly recognize each other as soul mates but are too decent to consummate their affair or to leave their respective spouses.

Departure from the film

Their anguish is heartbreaking, but in a departure from the film, their intense relationship is played off the naughty flirtation between Albert, the stationmaster, and Beryl, the mistress of the tearoom. The excellent Dorothy Atkinson portrays Beryl with humorous hauteur as she dispenses tea and insults.

The would-be young lovers— Annette McLaughlin as the waitress, and Gabriel Ebert as her suitor, Stanley the vendor— are delightful. Both couples show different aspects of romance and provide comic relief as well. And watch out for the yapping dogs that sniff out the lovers.

The inspired set design serves at various times as the train station, a fancy restaurant, Laura's living room, a bachelor apartment, a river on a sunny day and a churning ocean. The characters frequently appear to enter and exit from a movie screen.

Rachmaninoff, served lightly

Music is the other vital ingredient that serves the production so well. As much as I love Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto, it begins to grate after several viewings of the David Lean movie. But here the Rach 2 is used sparingly, to greater effect.

Laura plays it on the upright piano to express her inner passion. In a scene and mood change, the piano top also doubles as the tearoom counter, on which sit the scones of dubious freshness— the butt of an ongoing joke. They are served up with delicious music hall fare.

The audience at Studio 54 applauded heartily at the end of the 90-minute play. Many theatergoers, like me, were seeing Brief Encounter for the third time.

Our only disappointment was that the cast members didn't sing, dance and play their instruments in the lobby for a half-hour before and after the performance, as they did at St. Ann's Warehouse. That's where I met Joseph Alessi and first realized that he had played both Fred and Albert. When I go backstage the next time, I plan to tell him how much I loved his performance. And there will be a next time.♦


To read another review by Carol Rocamora, click here.