• Edith Taylor
• Renata Taylor
• Charles Mowbray
• Fabian Hill

• Director
• Stage Manager
• Assistant Stage Manager
• Lighting Design
• Lighting & Sound
• Assistant Lighting
• Continuity
• Set design
• wardrobe
• programme/Poster design

• Margaret Kennedy
• Sylvia Aston
• Roland Boorman
• Alan Lade

• Dennis Picott
• Phil Armstrong
• Sharon Besant
• Gary English
• Jenny Humphries
• Peter Barnes
• Wendy Picott
• Alan lade
• the cast
• Wendy Picott with Alan Lade

SEAFORD GAZETTE Review by Derek Watts

This all too human comedy (directed by Dennis Picott) about trying to do the right thing, is by Oscar-nominated author and playwright Ronald Harwood, who penned The Dresser and The Handyman. It is a domestically humdrum tale: Edith likes to think she is a good person. She was a dutiful daughter to her demanding mother, while selfish, younger sister Renata got all the attention (and all the husbands). Now their mother has died, the estate is to be divided equally between the impecunious spinster Edith (Margaret Kennedy) and her rich, much-married sister Renata (Sylvia Aston). Edith looked after ‘Ma’ for ages; Renata barely lifted one of her painted fingernails to help the old dear. But something tells her that Renata – glamorous, impossible, Renata – will always come out on top. What tension there is centres on the question - will Edith find that honesty, like beauty, is only skin deep? Will their eccentric mother's temptingly portable collection of antiques, littered round the set, an old railway carriage on a beach in Southern England, prove a temptation too far?

The widowed family solicitor, Charles Mowbray, played with his customary urbanity by Ronald Bormann, is on his way with news of the will. We divine that he has carried a torch for Renata for years, to which Edith is oblivious, vainly hoping that now she is free of her mother Charles might be the man for her – and perhaps she can be happy at last. When we learn however that the estate is to be equally divided the antipathy between the sisters bubbles over and it all seems so unfair. After all Edith has done for Mum, self-centred, spoiled Renata gets half of Mum’s money – home, antiques and all.

With the opening scene, a telephone monologue, things did take a while to get bubbling. Margaret Kennedy handled this difficult opening with aplomb and while the pace was never exactly frenetic, the satisfying conflict between the two sisters was deftly and amusingly established. Sylvia Aston gave Renata just the brittle, bitchy, egocentric edge she needed and by half time, with Boorman’s solicitor adding a frisson in his courteous invitations to her to dine, we were, one felt, in for a juicy second half.

The limitations of the script did for that. What is essentially an extended one-act piece had its shortcomings exposed by the time we meet fourth character, a disarmingly dishonest antiques dealer played by Alan Lade. Raffish, laid-back, with a touch of the Lovejoy, he suggests to Edith an alternative, a way to prevent the selfish Renata snaffling her undeserved share of the loot.  At this point, sadly, the whole thing toppled too far towards melodrama and what began as a simple and refreshing production quickly turned into something a bit harder to swallow – the reality and familiarity with the characters which is established throughout the play faltered once Renata and Charles have made their final exits, leaving Edith and Fabian alone on stage.

Edith, a character with whom we had come to sympathise, shifts swiftly into a different kind of character, more a very abrupt development of the script rather than lazy acting, but the result remained unfortunately negative. Therefore the ending, which seemed to suggest that Edith was about to run off to Motherwell with the attractive but dodgy Fabian, just didn’t ring true.

The majority of Equally Divided is very enjoyable; unfortunately it just doesn’t live up to the standard it sets for itself. Neither is it first-division Harwood, an otherwise intelligent and sensitive writer, As for the morality of justice via crime, it is somehow refreshing to behold criminal tendencies in distressed gentlefolk.

SEAFORD SCENE Review by Andrea Hargreaves

I’m not quite sure of the significance of playwright Ronald Harwood’s choice of a converted railway carriage for a setting for this deceptively powerful play, but it provided lots of opportunity for funny lines, erm, based on lines. Maybe, I couldn’t help musing, he was having a private joke at the expense of the quartet of actors who had to learn a huge number of them. But learn them they did — they were word and expression perfect.When I considered that a large proportion of the opening scene consisted of a monologue of a phone call delivered with captivating assurance by Margaret Kennedy as the downtrodden sister who was left to look after the recently deceased Ma, I knew I was in [or a treat.

Director Dennis Picoft worked magic on the verbose script, no doubt very grateful that four of the theatre’s stalwarts were cast for this comedy-drama that puts a case for doing wrong to do right in the cause of justice.

The story concerns two sisters, single and impecunious Edith (Margaret Kennedy) and flighty, rich, sexy and much-married Renata Taylor (Sylvia Aston), who meet in the family home to hear the reading of the will by pompous Charles Mowbray (Roland Boorman). Ma has spent her daughters’ inheritance on antiques, and when the solicitor suggests inviting a top dealer to assess the value, Edith, who has worn herself to the bone looking after her mother for 5 years while Renata hasn’t so much as chipped a fingernail, seeks out local dealer Fabian Hill (Alan Lade).

All four actors should be commended for their light touch, letting Harwood’s words do their work. Kennedy, who is no stranger to the director’s chair herself and has been involved with 61 productions, was at ease in her role, extracting the comedy in the early scenes, but becoming steadily more steely as she realised how unjust was the will. Scenes between Kennedy and Aston fizzed and sparkled, the former appearing martyred and petty against Aston’s delightfully played selfish younger sister who pocketed a treasure from the south coast railway carriage before running off back to London. Aston, a member of this theatre for 30 years, was in her element playing the role with
laughter-provoking verve and a cold indifference masked by put-on-for-effect tears. And talking of tears, Boorman was no slouch at false emotion either; forgetting to mourn his late wife when Aston happened along and pocketing a little objet when he had the chance. Lade made a believable lovable rogue, subtly persuading Kennedy to go along with his plan to ensure what she realised was due to her.

This play was, however; ultimately unsatisfactory — the curtain came down almost as if the author couldn’t be bothered to write a fitting conclusion — but it was given ultimate authority by the quality of the direction, the set and, most of all, by the quality of the cast of four.