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The Pain and the Itch, by Bruce Norris

A Review by Sara Russell

" For such a powerfully-built giant of a man, he is a surprisingly gentle soul, as well as being one of the most talented, best-loved actors of his generation." These pictures show Sara Russell and actor Matthew Macfadyen.

This is a scaled-down version of the original A4 size drawing that Sara gave to Matthew, which he is looking at in the previous photograph. It is a drawing of the thanksgiving dinner in the Pain and the Itch.

 

The Pain and the Itch, by Bruce Norris, is a wickedly-black satirical comedy which takes a pop at the foibles of uptight middle-class America.   Set in two time frames (which are separated on stage by clever changes of light and character positioning) the play centres around a well-off American family who are having their Thanksgiving dinner together. It turns out to be the Thanksgiving from Hell, as various embarrassing family secrets are revealed, which one-by-one serve to gnaw savagely at the foundations of the family's comfortable liberal - yet hypocritical - family values. At the same time, in much the same way, a mysterious, verminous animal has been savagely gnawing at the avocados in the fruit bowl.   Being very successful from the start of its run, The Pain and the Itch was extended from its June/July dates until early August. I met up with some good friends from an online fan forum, darcylicious.com, on two separate occasions to see it, as we were all avid fans of Matthew Macfadyen. We saw the matinee performance in both cases, and had lunch first in the Royal Court Bar. On both occasions we were also fortunate enough to meet Matthew Macfadyen and several other members of the cast, and get their autographs. We found Mattthew to be quietly-spoken, kind, friendly and very slightly bashful - even blushing the first time we met him on the 30th of June, when we first gathered round him near the stage door. He made sure that he signed autographs for us all, and posed for photographs with us, even though he had arrived with only half an hour to spare before going on stage. I was lucky enough to be able to give him several drawings I have done of him, including one of him in the play, which I put into his hands and saw his amazed reaction to it. We were all very surprised, when he began to act on stage - at Matthew's transformation from this quiet, friendly, boyish man that we had just met, into a loud, uptight American character. He simply turned into another person altogether, as if by magic...   In The Pain and the Itch, Matthew Macfadyen plays Clay, one of two highly-competitive brothers in the play's central family. Richard Sullivan plays Cash, the other brother, who is dryly sarcastic and laid-back, while Clay is hilariously portrayed by Matthew as an uptight, petulant boy trapped in a man's body. Cash has a foreign girlfriend, Kayla, who is played brilliantly by Andrea Riseborough. Kayla is on one occasion described by Clay's wife Kelly as "under-age Eurotrash beaver".   Kelly was ably played by Sara Stewart, who made her suitably frosty and brittle, as a high-powered working mother, while Clay stayed at home to look after their young daughter and baby son. Poor house-husband Clay finds his masculinity diminished further and further, at every new twist and turn of events. He is not a likeable character, but Matthew gives him humanity nonetheless.   As the story unfolds, a Nepalese man called Mr. Hadid (played with serene dignity by Abdi Gouhad) is complaining to the family about the untimely death of his wife, and there is an implication that the family had something to do with it, since his wife was a servant of theirs at the time. This is one disturbing mystery in itself. There is also the fact that some animal, perhaps a rat, has been leaving bite marks in the avocados. Worst of all, the family's four-year-old daughter has a rash in an embarrassing place - with worrying implications - which are not revealed until the second half of the play.  In the second half, all of the dreadful secrets come tumbling out, to the consternation of all concerned - in particular Clay and his wife. Some of the resulting scenes are surprisingly poignant, with some laughs here and there, whereas the first half of the play is hysterically funny throughout.   Matthew Macfadyen's speciality is his sensitivity as an actor, as demonstrated when he played Tom Quinn, the sensitive spy in Spooks, and when he gave his movingly funny and romantic portrayal of Mr. Darcy in Joe Wright's Pride & Prejudice movie in 2005. His other speciality is straight-man comedy, despite his reputation for sometimes laughing on set when he shouldn't, and starting everyone else off. He was very funny as Clay in The Pain and The Itch, and at one point, in persual of the legendary (avocado-gnawing) rat, he grabbed a golf club and went charging across the stage with a pent-up energy remeniscent of John Cleese in Fawlty Towers. We sat there in the stalls laughing until tears ran down our faces at this, and throughout most of this savagely-funny production. Even the second time we went to see it, we laughed just as hard in all the same places, maybe more so because we knew what was coming. In the interval, people who didn't even know each other were talking avidly about how funny it was. I have to say that The Pain and the Itch was not "politically-correct" in any way, and could make some people uncomfortable if they found their own values lampooned by any of it. This smartly removed any barriers of propriety that might get in the way of its superb comedy value.   It's worth mentioning Amanda Boxer, who was delightful as Clay and Cash's mother, Carol. She made her mom/grandma character endearingly sweet, dotty and funny, holding forth on all kinds of useless advice and information, while gamely trying to smooth things over as her family and guests progressively descended into bitter arguments and recriminations. Her American accent was flawless, too. At one point, after some particularly barbed abuse had been blurted out, followed by a stunned silence, she took her granddaughter's hand and sweetly announced "Well I'm going to put my jammies on"...   I wish there was a way to thank all of the actors and stage professionals involved in bringing The Pain and the Itch to us on those two memorable afternoons (in fact some of Matthew's fans went to almost every performance of the play). We met some of the actors and found them all to be friendly and willing to sign our play scripts.   In particular I will always remember how wonderful it was to meet my online friends at darcylicious.com - and especially how lovely it was to meet Matthew Macfadyen, after being a fan of his for so long, and to find him so well-mannered and friendly towards us all. For such a powerfully-built giant of a man, he is a surprisingly gentle soul, as well as being one of the most talented, best-loved actors of his generation. My poems in Resident Poets this month are an affectionate tribute to Matthew, and a memoir of our happy encounters with him.   Sara Russell, 1/10/07.

§ Resident poets and The Perils of Norris  (c. Sara L. Russell) feature Robin Ouzman Hislop, Michael Burch, Helga Ross and Sara L. Russell.

§ Looking forward to your poems... remember you can join our poets and readers group at youtube and watch some very interesting videoclips and animations with poems set to music, by Christina Rossetti, Emily Bronte, William Blake and many others.

§ Other videoclips can be found on the same site here. Some browsers will accept this embedded Introduction.