Stage Fright

Kontra Kreis Theatre, Bonn  “Ever since Alfred Hitchcock had beautiful Grace Kelly and suave Cary Grant ‘Catch A Thief’ in Nice, we have known that the French Riviera is an excellent place for a jewel robbery.  Its wicked reputation was renewed only a few years ago when very posh rocks worth more than 100 million Euro changed hands unlawfully at the Carlton Hotel in Cannes. Robin Hawdon’s comedy deals with a sizeable diamond necklace which belongs to film actress Grace Gervaise, and this priceless piece has vanished.  Furthermore Grace is discovered lying on a sofa, beautiful but lifeless. This story about glamour and dirty deeds during the Cannes Film Festival was enthusiastically applauded by the audience. The superficial tale of a complex criminal case involving missing diamonds and apparent attempted murder, which Hawdon weaves into his delightfully old-fashioned ‘murderous comedy’, is actually only a marginally important aspect. The author is more concerned with something more important: the enigma of reality versus outward appearance, of truth versus fiction. With Hawdon, doubt is everywhere. Everyone suspects everyone else, no-one is quite who they seem to be, even the much in evidence sexuality is often a subterfuge, and the apparent dead bodies, which turn up in considerable numbers, resemble Lazarus in that they tend to join quite soon again with all the others on stage. Hawdon fools the audience with an array of assumptions, and his permutation games reach dazzlingly absurd heights. During the course of the play we learn that actress Grace owes her popularity mostly to second rate B-movies. Hawdon’s play, however, can be classified as a genuine A.” – General Anzeiger – Bonn (translated from the German)