What begins as a clash of acting styles deepens into a revealing study of ego, ageing and the damage beneath familiar stereotypes.
There is an old anecdote about Sir Laurence Olivier and Dustin Hoffman on the set of Marathon Man. The story goes that, to prepare himself for the part of frazzled Thomas Levy, Hoffman went for nights without sleep.
“Why don’t you try acting, my dear boy,” commented old-school thesp Sir Laurence.
This is the stuff of Masterclass, a natty two-hander from the pen of Tim Connery.
In this version, the conflict is literally spelled out. On the whiteboard of the primary school setting, brash pretender Gary Brock writes his Method philosophy: “Be who you are.”
To which old-school luvvie Roger Sutherland adds the word “not”. Be who you are not is the most obvious definition of acting, he says, astounded anyone might think otherwise.
Alex Dee as Roger Sutherland
And so the clash is established. Brock (Kurt Lucas) and Sutherland (Alex Dee) rage across the generations. In a short play, this quickly becomes a tired refrain, going nowhere particularly original.
We crave more from Brock and Sutherland, and it is slowly teased out to great effect. Why are Sutherland, once a contender for Bond, and Brock, a former ten-year veteran of an Aussie soap, holed up in an £85-an-hour masterclass in a rented classroom?
They both have issues. Ah. Here it comes.
Sutherland is old (ie, overlooked by the profession), making a meagre living doing ads for funeral payment plans, with the money heading straight to HMRC. More than that, though, he is becoming forgetful.
“Do you know who I am?” he bellows, with an actor’s penchant for self-aggrandisement.
“Do you?” replies Brock.
Method and madness
Brock has immersed himself so far into his method that he has become a liability on set, violent and unpredictable. Besides, who wants a child actor who grew up?
Under Luke Adamson’s careful direction, they begin to see commonalities where before there were only differences.
To carry this through, Lucas, playing Brock, has a gleeful pseud’s intensity, sucking in his cheeks and going effortfully to his core essence. On occasion, he has the air of a David Brent.
Alex Dee is conveniently a Peter Graves look-alike. He presents Sutherland as stately, suave and imperturbable. It is only under duress that he peels away layers to reveal an ultimately tragic reality.
- Review – Gerry & Sewell’s raucous rise curdles into excess
- Review – Orphans plays shifting power games
The play is deft and sufficiently funny and, while its initial pitch lingers too long, it remains for the most part sharp and inquiring. Towards the end, one wonders how the writer will find a fitting resolution. He does so with some heavy-handed heart-tugging that comes a little too easily, especially after so much effort has been expended priming the pumps.
However, as a swift exploration of life’s capricious tendency to burst balloons, the Bridge House Theatre production is nicely done and well packaged.
And let’s just hope its success gets Brock and Sutherland back on their feet.
Masterclass ran at the Jack Studio Theatre, Brockley.
This review first appeared in The Spy In The Stalls.