der neue Merker

(…) The inevitable ensues, but the two lovers manage to rush by one another unnoticed in one and the same apartment (Terry Parsons is responsible for the set with its delightful Laura Ashley patterns) in a manner that only the most accomplished authors can achieve…

All hell breaks loose after the interval when both gentlemen are present (they each consider the other as someone quite different thanks to feminine fibs); but both (!) corresponding wives turn up, not to mention Anne’s ex-husband, pissed out of his mind, who has taken a fancy to Harriet… The way in which all these characters are tossed about in masterly fashion leaves one totally breathless.

This is achieved thanks to the requisite virtuosity displayed by director, Keith Myers (surely with the aid of a riding crop!), together with a cast that truly delivers the goods: Joy Brook as the artful Harriet and Maxine Gregory, her “friend” Anne every bit her match in the arts of deception, Robin Sebastian as the gentlemanly lover and James Barron (a treat!) as his rather more coarse counterpart, Matthew Carter, superbly pootled, Alexis Caley as the sophisticated wife and Lainey Shaw as the stolidly bourgeois equivalent (complete with wonderful accent).

A classic indeed at which you can laugh your head off.

Renate Wagner
16.05.2013

Austrian Times

Key for Two at Vienna’s English Theatre is a quintessentially British comedy. The play by John Chapman and Dave Freeman has to be one of the funniest and timeless shows about in the Austrian capital.

Indeed – at no point in history has it been easy for single women to survive financially.

In the play set in Thatcher’s 80s Britain however, Harriet, a good-looking and happily divorced woman, manages to mastermind the perfect plan.

She takes on two wealthy lovers, who, both entirely devoted to Harriet, each provide her with enough money to cover “running costs”.

To manage the rigid timetable and avoid the two men from bumping into each other, she thinks up this “mother”-figure who she has to spend a lot of time caring for. And who is, incidentally, also responsible for the large bills of Vodka and cigarettes. The mother is so prudish that Harriet insists she would never approve of any extra-marital affair.

One day however, things get rather more complicated when Harriet’s best friend Anne turns up at the front door during a gap between the two men’s visits.

It turns out that Anne sudden return from New Zealand is the best thing that could have happened to Harriet that night – and she proves instrumental in keeping Gordon the southern, slightly snobbish advertising executive from meeting Alec, the good natured, rustic northern diamond. Or will they meet after all?

The situation gets even more tricky for Harriet – and thus even more entertaining for the spectator – when the permanently drunk husband Anne has just ran away from also appears on the doorstep. Along with two slightly confused and suspicious spouses…

The top-quality acting, the impressive décor and the situation grotesque of the whole farce are just three reasons you should not miss the performance.

“Key for Two” is playing at Vienna’s English Theatre in the Josefsgasse until June, 29. Performances are daily at 7.30 pm except Sundays and there are no shows between May 18 and 20.

Olivia Michaud
17.05.2013

Kurier

(…) Lust gradually turns into a burden and finally into chaos as the rendezvous-timetable goes awry. Gordon’s ankle, damaged after he has slipped on the gift brought by rival Alec, triggers a breathtaking comic-dynamic that escalates to the absurd; there ensues a steady stream of mistaken identities, pairings-off, not to mention false venues as the love-nest suddenly mutates into a private clinic… typical British “sense of humour” levitates into the realms of abstruse-cryptic comedy. The further the play progresses, the more turbulent the entanglements of the characters become; the play is directed by Keith Myers with precision, with well-placed effects at breakneck speed.

Werner Rosenberger
01.06.2013

Vienna Review

Key For Two: Playing With Polygamy
All elements of good comedy are unlocked in this well-crafted romp of romance gone awry

“Wot’s a woman to do?” Times are bad. It’s Thatcher’s recession, just as bad as the one we’ve been told we have now. Harriet’s husband proved to be the worst of crooks. But thanks to the pill, this ‘80s divorcée can conjugate her two lovers to keep her life in complete sentences, giving a new definition to “working double shifts”.

The result is domestic room comedy with a whole new grammar, mastered to hilarious perfection in John Chapman and Dave Freeman’s Key for Two, running through 29 June at Vienna’s English Theatre.

The art of farce that started as “stuffing”, as comic interludes, like Lazzi from Commedia d’ellarte, has clearly evolved into a comic genre all its own, with modern writers such as John Osborne anarchising it and Alan Ayckbourn spinning it into metafiction.

Where Beaumarchais, Molière and Nestroy used it to lance the nobility, Chapman and Freeman furnish the genre gently in the open-minded bedchamber of the post World War II Everyman. Here, Wilde and Coward drawing rooms have vanished. So have the dandies and the epigrams.

This humour is more situational and physical, with ribbons of repartee “trippling” off colloquial tongues. But as in this thoroughly engaging romp, we know what is implied:

Anne: And do you … err … with Alec?

Harriet: Yes, I “err” with both of them. But not at the same time.

Key For Two reaches the pinnacle of Chapman’s prolific life. He didn’t merely write plays, but was a playwright, a master craftsman. And Key For Two is very well wrought.

We know from Ionesco’s Bald Soprano that if, “It’s the doorbell,” then, “It means there’s somebody there.” Farce is about the swinging doors and carousing in, over and under the beds. The actors hither, thither and double-take like rabbits popping out of warrens. Keeping tally of who does what through which of the five doors is like keeping track of chickens while they hatch.

There’s the innuendo of those interminable Carry On films that Freeman wrote in the ‘60s, but by Act Two, Harriet and Anne are having multiple paroxysms. The laughs swell in synch to the well-honed ensemble’s impeccable timing, while Chapman and Freeman masterfully manoeuvre the plot to its apoplectic climax.

The set, designed by Terry Parsons, is true to the script: Elegant Regency flat in Brighton. The bedroom is on a raised dais. U.R. leads into the bathroom. The wall around the bedroom is imagined and the rest of the stage below is part of the sitting room. Parsons is given little room to romp in, but has designed an exquisite, retro set, while managing to keep it colourfully contemporary, and the costumes are consistently bespoke.

The key to farce is that there are no superfluous furnishings and props; everything is there for a reason.

Keith Myers’ direction brings integrity to the script. He has cast well and drawn out the idiosyncrasies of the actor’s clearly delineated characters. The blocking is pristine, the dialects are clear and the mise en scène skilfully orchestrated. Its clear Myers is steeped in the cultural roots of this genre.

Gay divorcee Harriet is played unflappably by Joy Brook, who looks under 40 “… and will probably continue looking so for years to come.” She doesn’t miss a beat and is the fulcrum upon which this play seesaws. She feeds Gordon Alec’s fish and Alec Gordon’s eggs, as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

And there are plenty: As a hobby chicken farmer who runs a successful advertising agency, Gordon keeps Harriet copiously supplied, while complaining of the cost of her upkeep.

As a turned ankle turns Robin Sebastian’s kinetic performance to a plaintive whimper the episode becomes the turning of the plot.

Alec is North Country big, bluff, and owner of a fleet of trawlers played admirably, robustly by James Barron, navigating the stage with the keenness and generosity of a high-speed cruiser.

We get the impression Harriet’s dicing it a bit fine, jotting in her diary, “Eggs away five-thirty. Fish arrives at six”. Harriet’s “given up for dead” friend Anne arrives separated from her New Zealand husband, Richard. Maxine Gregory plays Anne as a female factotum with verve and nonchalance, relishing anything the pop-up spouses deliver.

Richard, a vet who “administers to half the sheep on South Island”, then turns up himself, bearing gifts of Johnny Walker scotch he’s somehow mistaken for chocolates. He plays with dipsomaniacal empathy, cosying up to a mink that has “shuffled off ‘is mortal coil”. He is hilarious.

And as the wives, Magda then Mildred, inevitably show up looking for their ‘itinerant’ husbands, the house inexplicably, but somehow credibly, morphs into a nursing home. Alex Caley acts with disdain and Lainey Shaw with convincing North Country bombast. They are generous foils with fine characterisations.

This Viennese audience proved well-tuned to farce, so save us the Dickens in these Hard Times and bring on the cheer of the Pantomime.

Glenn Waverley
19.06.2013