To complement its main-house production of Whodunnit (Unrehearsed), the Park is presenting six short plays by Christopher Durang about the insecurities of actors and the pitfalls of performance. Even if the pieces are uneven in quality, the sextet makes a coherent package proving that Durang is the most theatre-obsessed dramatist alive.
The climactic title-work, dating from 1981, shows a nervy accountant (Stefan Menaul) thrust unprepared into a play that starts as Private Lives and ends as A Man For All Seasons: it’s a potent piece in that it taps into the universal nightmare that in life we all find ourselves in inexplicable situations where everyone but us knows the lines. Even more chilling is a sketch in which Meaghan Martin plays, with a marvellous mix of ingratiation and panic, a collapsing standup who pleadingly asks: “Do you find me funny or disturbing?” On a lighter note, Martin also appears to great effect as a Hollywood hustler meeting a dithering dramatist (Adrian Richards) to persuade him to write a movie about a rabbi who falls in love with a priest.
Durang is good when he is specific about the fears and fantasies of showbusiness: less so when he generalises, as in a feeble satire on American drama which simply amounts to a series of name-checks. But I laughed most, in Lydia Parker’s breezy production, when Kate Sumpter appeared first as an audience member asserting that Greek tragedy produces “slight irritation” rather than pity and terror, and then as a classical Medea surrounded by a chorus claiming: “We are so upset we speak in unison.” Durang’s territory may be limited but he occupies it with a certain elan.
