Review: THE GAME OF LOVE AND CHANCE, Arcola Theatre

What do pop sensation Dua Lipa and a French comedy from the 18th Century have in common? Absolutely nothing. Especially in Quentin Beroud and Jack Gamble's adaptation of Pierre de Marivaux's The Game of Love and Chance.

A big fanfare welcomes the actors, who wave at the public as they climb onto the stage. This insufferable production starts as it means to go on: in a crass, overdone, obnoxious way. Marivaux's betrothed characters swap places with their staff unbeknownst to one another to confirm the other's virtues. Chaos ensues. Or should ensue...

In Beroud and Gamble's version, spoilt, bratty, and catty Sylvia (Ellie Nunn) disguises herself as her maid Lisette (Beth Lilly) as her suitor Dorante (Ammar Duffus) visits her in the guise of his own valet Harlequin (Michael Lyle). The couples remain in the dark for much of the overly long and exceptionally frustrating show until it's confirmed that maid and valet are in love and so are the two fops.

The Arcola Theatre's website describes it as "a raucous romantic comedy about sex, class, [sic] and blessings in disguise" and the program boasts the use of the ancient craft of commedia dell'arte. It's safe to say that there's very little of the aforementioned in it, with the boorish sexual innuendos generously sprinkled throughout being the only promise kept.

With signet rings galore and plenty of champagne problems, this rendition is a play after your Tory heart. Beroud and Gamble might have started the brainstorming phase with the intent of making people laugh and demonstrate how ridiculous the upper caste is, but they lost the plot somewhere along the lines.

Their mixed messaging has them siding too much with the aristocrats before bashing the working class relentlessly and neglecting the sympathetic and sly side of the material. It's exasperating to see the absence of socio-political critique that plagues the project, and all the satire is so diluted you can barely taste it.

The play has a befuddled feeling to it with a severe dearth of space for any subtlety. The actors aren't convincing under their overemphasized asides and all the thrusting into thin air that's going on with the men.

It's generally complicated to talk about feminism with the stock characters of the commedia dell'arte, but the original masks always brought a level of caricature to the table, at least. In this translation of The Game of Love and Chance the representation of women and their relationships to the men can be truly problematic. This is especially evident in Harlequin's predatory and inexcusable advances to the maid disguised as the heiress.

The muddled setting also has its part in this: the existence of emails and iPhones places the action in a contemporary context - as do the musical interludes in-between the scenes that feature Dua Lipa's "Levitating" - but the very 60s loud costuming (which are almost as objectionable as the performances!) and anachronistic events make it take a step back and wonder what exactly is going on on stage.

It all comes down to a virtually amateurish and way too farcical direction, perhaps driven by the presence of two heads in Beroud and Gamble. The show ends up being excessively long for its contents, and the very few humorous bits are so stretched that by their ends they're not comical anymore.

Ultimately, The Game of Love and Chance is an overcooked, unfunny, unreasonably lenghty mess of a play.

The Game of Love and Chance runs at Arcola Theatre until 7 August.

Photo credit: Alex Brenner

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