A set of strings stretched like a fingerboard with elongated shelving extending beyond the sight-lines suggests a metaphorical expansion for the Nunkie Theatre production of The Double Bass at the Granary. The play is a teaser, promising more than it delivers, but Ali Robertson's direction delays this awareness until a bond of sympathy unites audience and soloist in an unbreakable affection.
Robert Lloyd Parry is the instrumentalist tilting at the tyrannies of his civil service status in a national orchestra. As Patrick Suskind writes this character, the role is infused with the music of his instrument, crucial to the resonance and rhythm of the orchestra without ever carrying the melody.
Parry's tight-lipped delivery changes the conversational style into something a little too intimate, a cross between a tutorial and a confession. Yet this carries the frustrations of the character with conviction: although clever and funny and fantasising about a mezzo soprano who betrays him by eating in fish restaurants, the double bass (third desk) after all knows his place in the hierarchy of ability.
No metaphor, then, but a pleasing insight enlivened by music and needing only a little more directorial punch at the end to be perfect. Patrick Murray's set is lit by John Cummiskey. A credit for the translator would have been welcome.
At the Granary until May 29th
