Lorna Irvine finds this production based on the cult-classic film watchable but disappointing.
This Scottish premiere from Theatre Jezebel and Glasgay! of Colin Higgins' classic American play feels more farce than black comedy.
Harold Chasen (Tommy Bastow) is an existential teen loner who gets his kicks from attending random funerals and acting out through faking elaborate suicides. When he meets spritely 79-year old widow Maude (Vari Sylvester) at a funeral, he subsequently falls for her.
It is undoubtedly a difficult task to take on such iconic roles. Sadly, Bastow's portrayal seems too cheeky to be troubled oddball Harold; meanwhile Sylvester, although lively and mischievous, sands the tough edges off firecracker Maude, her homespun wisdom and fluttery accent merely grating.
As ever, Kenny Miller's set design of mostly red and black backdrops with projections and sliding panels looks vivid- Paul Sorley's lighting adding real dynamism.
Yet this a play which requires darker shades of nuance- its message of radicalism and living each day to the full blunted and a little banal; with only Anita Vettesse's high-camp, acid performance as the insufferable snob Helen, Harold's mother, bringing real credibility in acting terms—she is monstrous but with an undercurrent of vulnerability. Richard Conlon as the unctuous doctor seems to have wandered in from another play, like a pervery game show host.
However, some scenes are well-judged- namely Maude's ''olfactory paintings''; the moment when the unlikely lovers bond over suicide attempts and Helen's filling in of the questionnaire as Harold squeezes a gun to his head are all hilarious, but in the main, it is a twee re-imagining of a bittersweet play, more Disney Technicolor than earth colours: even the overdose of pills is one with a distinctly saccharine flavour.
Watchable then, but lacking the melancholic autumnal magic of Hal Ashby's 1971 silver screen adaptation.
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