Trouble in Tahiti
Dystopia in Suburbia
Trouble in Tahiti
by Leonard Bernstein
Arcola Theatre, part of the Grimeborn Festival at Arcola Theatre until 12th August
Review by Patrick Shorrock
This short show is forty-five minutes of pure delight. My only complaint is that, after Bernstein incorporated it into his later full length opera A Quiet Place, Grimeborn didn’t give us the longer work. Maybe next year.
Written in 1952, this gentle satire hasn’t really dated, as suburban married couple Sam and Dinah, imprisoned by the stereotypical gender roles they have adopted, express their mutual unhappiness and frustration, something they find easier to do to the audience than to each other.
Meanwhile a Jazz trio – think barbershop Rhinemaidens – comments ironically, with gorgeous singing from Izzi Blain, James Wells, and Tim Burton.
Bernstein’s music has a real wit and lilt, which conductor Olivia Tait and her small orchestra successfully captured. Despite its title, the piece is very much set in suburbia. Trouble in Tahiti is the film that Dinah goes to see rather than her son’s school play, which her husband also misses, giving priority to his handball game. Although he wins it, he is all too aware of ‘the law of men that even the winner must pay through the nose’. But, recognising that there is something not right between him and Dinah, he asks her out to see – Trouble in Tahiti.
Finn Lacey’s direction displayed a light but effective touch. Peter Norris perhaps needed a bit more bite as Sam, while Alexandra Meier occasionally oversang as Dinah, but both gave compelling performances with beautifully phrased anguish and regret in a piece that definitely deserves to be performed more often.
Patrick Shorrock, August 2023
Photography by Caz Dyer
Mark Aspen 