Tomorrow Morning Review
Theatre.com
18th July 2006
Tomorrow Morning
Will Tomorrow Morning live to see another day? Quite likely in a
musical theatre climate that can't seem to get enough of relationship shows
(I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change; The Last Five Years) and its
pocket-sized appeal - one set, four characters - won't hurt this entry's prospects
one bit. All the more reason, then, to wish that Laurence Mark Wythe's triple
offering as composer, lyricist, and book writer were that little bit more
original in its portrait of two couples at different points on the partnering
spectrum. While Kat (Emma Williams) and John (Stephen Ashfield) are nervously
preparing for their wedding, Catherine (Annette McLaughlin) and Jack (Alistair
Robins) have seemingly reached the end of the marital road and are on the phone
to lawyers. The "brave new world on the horizon" rather generically invoked by
the incipient newlyweds exists in contrast with the realm of hurt, betrayal, and
anger occupied by the older pair.
Annette McLaughlin in Tomorrow
Morning
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These are universal topics, and few in the audience won't have felt in some
way or other something of the lovesick exuberance and/or cold, sharp sting
trawled by a show here given a highly polished staging from Nick Winston on an
attractive Philip Witcomb set that looks ripe ”and smart enough” for transfer. The
onward life of the work itself would seem assured, not least in regional markets
on both sides of the Atlantic in search of material whose power to connect is
inbuilt, even if too much of the writing depends on random, interchangeable
sentiments ("this is my time" etc.) that deprive the work of a greater rigour.
It's probably boring but nonetheless inevitable to point out the definitive
attack brought to comparable encounters by Stephen Sondheim, who has anatomised
for keeps pre-nuptial jitters (in "Getting Married Today" from Company) and devised an entire
show around couples gone cold(Follies).
Emma Williams & Stephen Ashfield
in
Tomorrow Morning
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The more youthful
pair is the budding writer John, whose authorial finesse isn't helping him write
his wedding-day speech, and the tracksuit-wearing Kat, whose onetime abandonment
by her father isn't the only reason why she's thinking of calling the whole
thing off ”and, indeed, does so in a phone message she comes deeply to regret.
Kat angsts about being fat and flips out over anchovies on her pizza, while John
tries to figure out what to do with his cache of porn (unwelcome shades there of
No Sex Please, We're British). I have a feeling, however, that many in
the audience might urge Kat to reconsider her commiment for an altogether
different reason: namely, John's fondness for stretching out on a light-coloured
sofa with his trainers on. (For shame!)
Life, meanwhile, has envenomed Catherine and the adulterous Jack after a
marriage of nearly 12 years that has produced a young son, who is nearly 10.
Jack has punctuality issues ”he's the type, we gather, who would be late for his
own divorce ”and Catherine feels as if she is losing control. And yet, regret
shades their bile in some of Wythe's stronger writing. Jack reports that his new
flat is "big, big ”I mean small," and an abiding physical attraction still
remains, which won't surprise anyone susceptible to the considerable charms of
McLaughlin, an always-arresting presence with Patti LuPone's laugh (and lips)
and an angularity that can be comic one minute and severe the next.
Williams is very good, too, as the most self-evidently neurotic of the
quartet, though her voice is strong enough not to need miking in a tiny venue in
which amplification can turn an attractive set of pipes into something metallic
and shrill. Of the men, the steely-voiced Ashfield makes the most of a first-act
anxiety dream that is sufficiently complete in and of itself not to require the
rather arch miming from his colleagues. But then, just when you may feel as if
you've seen (and heard) much of this before, Wythe effects a surprise that can
be gleaned in advance from careful scrutiny of the programme. The twist lends a
neat touch to a show that can use it and all but guarantees Tomorrow Morning not a few tomorrows.
Tomorrow Morning
By Laurence Mark Wythe
Directed by Nick Winston
New End Theatre
Matt Wolf
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