← February, 1993

Review: Relatively Speaking

Richard Basehart Playhouse, 21028-B Victory Bl., Woodland Hills, 818-704-1845

by Jim Berg

A delightful evening of mistaken identity and romantic irony is to be had at the Basehart Playhouse with Alan Ayckbourn’s “Relatively Speaking.” Greg (Andrea Parks) is a somewhat gullible but charming boyfriend of Ginny (Sara Ballantine). The play opens in Ginny’s London flat, where Greg is awoken by a mysterious phone call while Ginny is hastily getting ready for a trip to the country to visit her “parents.” Gregory’s suspicion is aroused by the phone call, flowers, candy, and a pair of men’s house-slippers, but he’s appeased by Ginny’s hasty explanations. He then proposes marriage, at which she balks, and when he suggests that he go with her to meet her parents, she adamantly refuses, saying they’re not ready. Act one ends with the departure of Ginny, and Gregory’s decision that he will surprise Ginny and her parents with a visit.

What follows is a delightfully contrived act two; the audience is treated to a smooth set change from a London flat to a country garden that was actually fun to watch and drew applause from the audience.

The beginning of act two introduces us to Philip (Mark Grady Adams) and Sheila (Margaret Muse), who are an older couple who have resigned themselves to the perpetuity of marriage, and have settled in to a very civil war in which one is trying to gain some sort of control over the other. Both suspect the other of infidelity; neither really cares, but neither can use it to get at the other. This bizarre relationship is wonderfully portrayed by Adams and Muse. Into this fray enters poor naive Gregory, who thinks that they are Ginny’s parents, when in fact Philip is Ginny’s former (first) lover. Gregory arrives right at home with her “parents.” Because of overlapping mistaken identity, only the audience really understands what’s going on, until Ginny arrives and things start to unravel. ♦