Fringe Festival: 1812 Productions’ ‘Intimate Exchanges’

One of the advantages of being a playwright, indeed one of a playwright’s principal responsibilities, is to explore the consequences of choice in characters’ lives. Alan Ayckbourn’s Intimate Exchanges is all about choices and consequences — only here Ayckbourn enlists the aid of his audience in making those choices. In fact, the theatrical conceit of the play is that the action stops periodically while an audience member is asked what a character should do, with the subsequent determined by the audience member’s choice. We are told that there are eight versions of this play, depending on the choices that are made.

Jennifer Childs and Anthony Lawton star in this comedy of modest execution and ambitious conceptualization, which reminded me of these quiet but literate British sitcoms that frequently show up on PBS. The story centers around a very proper middle-aged couple, Toby and Celia Teasdale, who from all appearances are very unhappy. He is a school headmaster awash in bile and bitterness, and she is a housewife filled with desperation and repression. Celia finds herself vulnerable to the apparent charms of Lionel, a local jack-of-all-trades also played by Lawton, who is himself irresistibly attracted to her. Should Celia try to work things out with her sharp-tongued husband, or should she go off with this gallant new suitor, whom she barely knows? And here is where the gimmick kicks in.

Intimate laughs

Intimate Exchanges is not a laugh-out-loud comedy; it evokes smiles and rueful chuckles at the sharp witticisms. Director Mary Carpenter pulled things together with a light, deft touch, avoiding the pitfalls of melodrama that were a danger with the more cynical passages.

What made the whole thing watchable were the spot-on performances by Jennifer Childs and Anthony Lawton, who each had to play a couple of roles. Childs, a cofounder and the artistic director of 1812 Productions, is one of this city’s acting treasures. She effortlessly maintained the delicate balance of silliness and vulnerability. Likewise, Anthony Lawton kept Toby largely sympathetic despite the endless bitter tirades he had to spout, and his Lionel held onto an appealing charm even as successive layers of neurosis were unveiled.

Lance Kniskern deserves a special mention for his charming set, which was a dead-on recreation of those British suburban sitcoms.

If you don’t walk in expecting raucous hilarity, you won’t be disappointed by Intimate Exchanges. It’s a low-key show with a knowing wit that digs in and makes you care about the choices being made, so that if called upon, you actually want to make the right choice for whomever’s fate you are deciding.