According to the play’s website, The Guardian has claimed of Mr Kolpert that “Comedy doesn’t come much blacker or better than this”. Unless the publication was referring to a very different rendition of the play, with a fair number of script adjustments, I would beg to differ: Arguing that that Rachel Valentine-Smith’s rendition of Mr. Kolpert is neither dark nor particularly comedic, mostly relying on predictable and poorly timed jokiness and unshocking shock value.
Except for the ending. The ending is both dark and funny; bathos is finally achieved.
Mr. Kolpert centers on the closed trunk center stage. Soon, of course, it is suggested that there is a dead body, the body of Mr. Kolpert, hidden inside. What follows may be described as ‘madcap’ and involves plenty of violence, slapstick humour and an incessant repeat of the purported victim’s name.
From the very outset Edward Fulton’s portrayal of Ralph is extremely annoying – traversing a terrible line between intentional overacting appropriate to farce and otherwise ‘good acting’ – what’s left is that Fulton just has a tendency to speak very loudly. The two female leads are slightly better, with Kate Sawyer and Laura Freeman’s hysterical psychoses playing out more convincingly. Damian Lynch presents a credible performance of an abusive architect always on the edge of collapse and violence.
Mr. Kolpert follows these four characters, with a brief interlude from a well-played Pizza Boy as they discuss, perpetrate (OR DO THEY?) and contest their murderous actions.
It seems clear that the play is intended to function as a critique of the bourgeoisie; performing a scene whereby commodity culture breeds a boredom so acute that even murder, the one act not yet recuperated by Capitalist leisure culture, does little to assuage the tedium.
However, Mr. Kolpert does fails to actually perform this critique. Though I should note that others in the audience tittered along complicitly, and seemed to enjoy the campy violence, for me the play functioned only to produce more of the boredom that is its subject matter. Not violent enough or camp enough. Not enough fake blood or raised eyebrows or, in the other direction, not enough careful timing, subtle acting, meaningful exchange; the play is decidedly flat.
Except for the ending, of course.
