We've been Waiting for Something Like This: The Waiting Room, Leicester Square Theatre

By Helena Payne

The Waiting Room at The Leicester Square theatre is everything that Fringe Theatre can achieve. Experienced professionals who know their craft choosing to produce intelligent, often overlooked pieces and producing them well. There is absolutely no fuss in Jenny Eastop's interpretation of John Bowen's script, and neither should there be; the characters are beautifully written and expertly performed. It is a wise move to only have three performances of The Waiting Room. There is no point in enduring a month long run of a piece, so obscure no one remembers when you opened or when you will close and as such never manages to make it to the theatre. No, short runs on the Fringe are the future; long enough to invite the press and create a bit of a buzz but without outstaying your welcome and having to perform a Sunday matinee to fewer audience members than the cast. The Waiting Room is only on for three nights in the Lounge at the Leicester Square Theatre and, as such, is packed to the rafters. The atmosphere is jovial and humming, and the performance area is basic: four chairs, and a table strewn with magazines to show we are in a waiting room. Pretty irrelevant though, as this show could have been performed on a tight-rope, what with the tension between the two main characters. The drama is a duet between Harriet and Paul, the ex-wife and ex-lover of a recently deceased man waiting to confirm his identity. The enmity is palpable from the off as they duel with each other, throwing accusations back and forth, both desperately hanging onto the sanctity of their broken love. There are crystalline performances from Beth Eyre and Mark Rush as the dejected lovers. Beth Eyre's Harriet is all clipped and chilly officiousness; a pitiful shield for the pained creature we sense crumpled beneath the surface. Whilst Rush, with his strange and cadaverous face, simmers and spits venom, desperately attempting to regain the upper hand. They push focus onto each other, not wanting to examine their personal failings, yet reveal, much to their infuriation, that they are more similar than they would wish. Tara Dowd makes a strong impression as a dedicated cleaner, punctuating the emotionally charged atmosphere with much needed moments of levity. She reminds us that even in our darkest moments it is possible to laugh, and a requisite to laugh at ourselves. Paul Valentine entertains as a “robotic,” and socially awkward porter, who's charge is only revealed in the final moments of the play. When Bowen wrote The Waiting Room, homosexuality had only just been decriminalised, the prospect of a male lover's relationship being just as valuable as that between a man and wife would have been shocking to many audience members. Perhaps not so much to a modern audience, but that distance gives us the space to marvel at the beauty of the piece he has crafted. Noughts and crosses recur as a motif throughout the slick 40 minute running time. Bowen likens the compulsion to play noughts and crosses to their doomed relationships; you're aware no one is going to win but you keep playing the game regardless. The dialogue glitters along; an ephemera of poignant and witty repartee, but personally I would have liked slightly bolder and more angular shifts in pitch, pace and projection as Harriet and Paul uncover each other’s revelations. This was a thoroughly enjoyable and worthwhile piece of theatre, and if this production goes some way to resurrecting other work by John Bowen I think that can only be a positive thing. In the year where gay marriage has been legalised it is important to remember the long and painful journey it has taken to get to this point. The specifics of how Harriet's husband and Paul's lover has died are never revealed, but they cannot identify him from his face suggesting it is in a violent and probably homophobic attack. It is a cold reminder of the violence and persecution that still persist in this world for the crime of loving one whom some believe you shouldn't.