The play’s the thing

Hamlet, that most fascinating of plays, has provided many a playwright over the years with ideas for a new play, DavidTristram being one of themost recent.

Polly March’s direction is in many ways impeccable- Paul Xuereb

The plot of his Ghost Writer (St James Cavalier) is based on the disclosure by the ghost of Ruby, actress wife of the playwright Edward, that her death was not due to an accidental overdose of drugs, but to deliberate poisoning by one of the guests at a party.

Unlike the ghost in Hamlet, Ruby does not know her murderer’s identity and urges Edward to help her find it out.

The character of Ruby owes a debt to another well-known stage character, the ghost of Elvira in Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit, who causes trouble between her husband and his second wife.

In David Tristram’s play, Ruby shows herself still jealous of Edward, a womaniser, who is clearly attracted to Glenda, a young actress whom Edward’s gay friend Alex, has brought along to fill the serious emotional void from which Edward has been suffering.

Like Hamlet, Ruby thinks that a play is “the thing” to help her and Edward discover the murderer, especially since all the suspects are fellow-actors.

Using her supernatural powers, Ruby helps Edward write a play script based on the events of the party where Ruby was killed, and Edward invites the suspects to attend a play-reading of a script he would like to see performed.

Save for the dark colourthat tinges the ending, theplay is a light, often farcical, piece in which the activitiesof Ruby entertain the audience even more than they disconcert Edward and especially theother characters who do not even have a clue about Ruby’s hostile presence.

Polly March, whose direction is in many ways impeccable, has not devised a technique to make Ruby look different from the ‘living’ characters, such as using a bluish make-up and costume for her so Ruby’s presence in the midst of all the other characters does not make an impact most of the time.

It is only when she does something that is clearly invisible to the other characters (save Edward) that her power becomes obvious. The use of special lighting and of dry ice, on the other hand, makethe murderer’s terror anddeath fearful.

Alan Montanaro and Denise Mulholland as Edward and Ruby keep the action moving strongly all the time.

Montanaro’s Edward is a nervous man whose loss of Ruby has deprived him of the joy of living and caused him a serious writer’s block.

While he admits to having slept around purely for sex, he has clearly been in love with Ruby and is now in dire need of another long-term relationship with a woman, and TarynButler’s Glenda, a rare actress who is also a shy person, is surely the person he needs.

He and Ruby – who reminds us of the limitations placed – by Lucifer – on her rare incursions into the world of the living – manage well the long scene of the play-reading, a classic scene based on a score of such scenes in Agatha Christie’s whodunits, balancing the moments of tension with elements of fun.

Ruby is revealed as having had sex during the party. However, she fumes when she discovers that Edward has been just as guilty.

She is a most determined and unscrupulous ghost who brings the play to a swift climax as soon as she has identified her killer and at the same time ensures herself a renewal of her life with Edward by possessing the expiring Glenda and changing her from the uninteresting young woman she is into a spirited Ruby Mark 2.

Mulholland makes Ruby into a formidable being. She and Montanaro make a memorably comic duo.

Butler’s Glenda has an excellent opening scene with Edward but is unable to flesh out this underwritten part in later scenes. Edward Mercieca as Hedley, a bibulous bore of an actor wearing a ludicrous wig, brings fun to the play-reading scene, while Marika Fenech is a vain and unwisely self-revelatory Frances, Hedley’s wife and a second-rate actress who unwisely aspires to be a leading actress and behaves like one in private life.

Stefan Farrugia makesAlex, Edward’s host, friendand admirer, a convincing character who is gay but never overemphasises this.