18 - The Graduate, CODA at the Ashcroft Theatre, Croydon

There were some strong performances in this production of The Graduate which were a joy to watch. Danielle Lautier was an enigmatic and very sexy Mrs Robinson, perfectly cast. Christopher Rudd was engaging as the young graduate Benjamin who she seduces. His wide ranging performance had the right balance of stuttering insecurity and arrogant rebellion. I also particularly enjoyed David Sanders’ performance as Ben’s father Frank which was very funny.

I quite liked the atmospheric set but there were too many clunky and slow scene changes for me which left me feeling like this hadn’t been an entirely successfully adaptation for the stage. The muted palate of the set also made the scenes very samey especially as the characters spend most of the play sitting about talking nonsense.

They just don’t talk or act like real people these characters, and this is a problem with the play rather than the actors in this production. Elaine seems to impress Ben on their first date with her intelligent and sparkling conversation, but later she’s presented as an unoriginal thinker who has simply acted to please her parents all her life. She finds out her mother has slept with her boyfriend, then hangs around drinking with her all afternoon like a world-weary pragmatist. But she isn’t one, she’s supposed to be a relatively naive young women, who surely would react to the news by locking herself in her room, crying and playing pop music.

These undeveloped characters might work in a novel where their changeability and unrealistic nature might come across as existentialism or surrealism. (I can’t be sure, I haven’t read it.) But in a naturalistically acted play they were just irritating.

It felt a bit like this play had been wheeled out by CODA as an audience-pleaser because it was a popular film and men love to see a sexy cougar. But I was less than pleased, because the play pretended to have something clever to say about the human condition and in the end I don’t think it did. I want to see an experienced and well-established group like CODA in the large Ashcroft theatre give me as an audience member a bit more credit and put on some good plays rather than movie blockbusters please. Let’s have some Checkov next time, or better yet some Brecht.