Couldn't Ask for Another

Set in a blindingly sanitary room at Happy Camper Inn (where “Comfort is the fort most worth defending”), Charles and Cassandra’s 19 year marriage is deconstructed by two sets of themselves, on the day of their happy and naïve engagement, and nearly two decades on, nearing the point of estrangement. The play deals with the tediousness of time, the numbness of all-encompassing alienation and the necessitous cruelty that can evolve from a previously loving and youthful relationship. Written and directed by Charles Rivington and Rose Rea, it provokes thought into the quintessential life experience - marriage.

The juxtaposition of Charles and Cassandra’s contrasting stages of life together within the same scenes is a stroke of genius, allowing for a physical reflection on how much things have changed. This was particularly apparent in the young Cassandra’s (Laura Horton) monologue where she writes feverishly into her Moleskin, enlightened and infused, while stood next to her older self, lost, head in hands, clutching a glass of mini-bar vodka. It also allowed for a stunning denouement of the younger couple’s post-proposal dance together to be overlaid with the impassioned and savage argument between the older Cassandra and Charles. Their scathing resentment for each other could have become monotonous had it not been interspersed with the younger couple’s puppy-like playfulness, but both Francesca Isherwood and James Oliver committed to their despondent postures without losing the energy of the play. Isherwood must be commended on her performance, perhaps the strongest of the show, she was excellent in portraying Cassandra’s near-perpetual alcoholic stupor, persistently pushed to the edge but holding on to the last smidgeon of composure. One of her final monologues lead to a real lump-in-the-throat moment, she effectively conveyed Cassandra’s unremitting disenchantment with her marriage, her career, even the quality of the hotel room. Special mention must also be given to Laura Ward Nokes, playing the over-informed automaton followed by a world-weary and slightly cougar-ish hotel employee, who not only provided the majority of the comic relief, but did so with great timing and an astonishing ability to speak very fast in a French accent. There were some beautifully crafted comic moments between the young couple, such as Sam Lawson’s mistaking of an electricity tower for the Eiffel Tower, and classic of all, his blunder over Horton’s appearance and her indignant response of “how enormous do you think I am?” which elevated the narrative from pure doom and gloom. Similarly, Horton’s adorable dance to the song ‘I Couldn’t Ask for Another’ and the subsequent coquettish scene with the young Charles convinced the audience that at one point, they really did care for each other. While much of the dialogue of Rea and Rivington’s script was funny, it often came with a shadow of anguish - such as Isherwood’s brief attempt at seduction being rebuffed with a debate on which hotel freebies would provide the most satisfactory suicide.

I appreciated the more subtle reflections Rea and Rivington made, for example, beyond the elder couple’s incessant bickering, their emotional disparities are manifested in moments such as Cassandra’s writing of a shopping list where she notes that they take different milk. I was also struck mid-performance how the set seemed to convey the approaching thundering cloud of their soon-to-be fragmented relationship, clothes strewn around the room with apparent nonchalance, but all under the stark, analytical lighting. Unfortunately, but I put this down to first-night nerves, it took a while for the amorous side to Horton and Lawson’s relationship to become convincing. I feel it also would have been to the audience’s benefit if there were more visual connections between the two couples, conviction that they are playing the same people could have been obtained perhaps as simply as in the way they held each other, a piece of jewellery worn by both generations of the character or even the way in which the Cassandras wrote in their notebook.

All in all, Couldn’t Ask for Another is wonderfully written, smart and eloquent, peppered with amusing musings (“How did la môme Piaf die? Did she fly into a window?”) and held together by a strong cast. Lets just hope its insightful reflection into married life is not what we must expect for our own relationships.

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