Review by Simon Jenner, March 11th 2025
The walls are lavender and the centre lime. It could be from Wilder’s whacky 1960 film The Apartment, but lavender’s there for a reason. Who’s afraid of pink when the homophobic 1950 ‘lavender scare’ peaks? Not this married quartet; but who’s married to whom? And what codes flicker when that quartet’s a sextet? Or worse, a seventh, determined to out everything? Topher Payne’s 2016 Perfect Arrangement directed by Tess Gill plays at Brighton Little Theatre till March 15th
Ensemble Photo Credit: Miles Davies
This starts out whacky, like The Importance of Being Earnest transposed to Bewitched. Then shifts to An Ideal Husband territory, replete with a blackmailing Mrs Cheveley. Then you realise this is a mesmeric fusion of 1950s high farce tipped into high drama, doors and closets slamming to the last. But is it Faydeau or A Doll’s House?
Maybe both. There’s been nothing like this play, running at two-hours 15 minutes. It’s based on the true story of gay resistance as the U.S. State Department moves in the spring of 1950 from hunting communists to “deviants” and even the heterosexually promiscuous. It’s where Bob Martindale (Anthony R Green, debuting here as a suave department head, a smidgeon from convention) and Norma Baxter (Holly Everett) work.
Straight promiscuity puts a whole new class at risk, including voracious Barbara Grant (Carolyn Chinn) who arriving late in Act One, won’t come or go quietly. Even if you’re not an opera-goer or don’t walk your dog in a park (the latter sackable even if you’re straight), you’re at risk. The Korean War looms, though nobody believes it or Senator McCarthy can really amount to anything.
Photo Credit: Miles Davies
Bob Martindale’s the perfect double husband, a paterfamilias guiding the quartet including young teacher husband Jim Baxter (ever-anxious Chris Purtill-Ball, a little too managed by Bob for comfort), in fact married to slightly older Norma. That’s whilst Bob’s married to former poet Millie (Tacye Turner), sexually awoken by a woman professor when 19. Now she’s a homemaker in a loving relationship with state department Norma, and both couples revert joyfully and relief to their true gay selves, when guests have gone: the language recognizably modern and sweary, blowing the 1950s veneer reserved for outsiders.
That’s when entertaining Theodore Sunderson (Leigh Ward, bluster giving way to steely menace later), and Kitty Sunderson (Suzanne Heritage, whose exquisite battiness and trivia shrouds genuine feeling). Payne’s sextet hand round exquisite canapés – recipes and receipts for clean living. In itself he proves these are shibboleths for a frightened society. Jokes too cleave to absurdity: Jim, Norma claims nervously, had to throw a way lipstick-smeared handkerchief after each of their dates (mother would disapprove) so it’s cheaper to marry her. But Kitty notices he’s a bit younger than Norma: that’s remarkable.
Everett’s quick-witted, inventive Norma is indeed a hopeless liar, and Everett in several ways is the heart of the play, subtly realised here as Everett plays foil to more riotous comedians only to prove she’s no foil at all. She and Turner prove an equality and affection less embarrassed than their ‘husbands’ though that’s tested when the latter confess to man-sex on the sofa.
Photo Credit: Miles Davies
Through a dizzying plot around Barbara Grant’s possible firing and her determination to survive, it’s Turner who first realises the enemy who fist threatens Norma maybe isn’t one. And there’s reasons for that too. Turner (like Green, an American making her BLT debut) shifts from the homemaker, subtly managed by Norma’s career, to an awakening. But can she persuade Norma? The quartet’s conscience, Turner goes through more gear-changes than anyone in the play.
Excellent at showing someone ingenious who hits a wall when taken out of his box, Green hums benign command. He’s required to make speeches edgily pitched comparing themselves to minorities; Turner too. It firmly sets even enlightened gay people with prejudices. Purtin-Ball, most junior, most vulnerable, chafes visibly and makes his fright clear.
Steven Adams’ otherwise beautifully observed Washington set is symbolically lavender, as the dominant two tones even give off to the mesmerically authentic shrubbery outside the front door. Beverley Grover’s witty lighting highlights whenever one character gives out a recipe like an early TV ad. And arresting choices of music where Guys and Dolls’ ‘Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat’ gives way, singularly at the end to Mary Drake.
Another BLT debutante, Chinn – describes the call (as I couldn’t possibly) for “a bitchy, over-sexed woman of a certain age from Montreal” as “finally a chance to play a role that requires absolutely no acting.” That is of course rubbish. But it conveys Chinn’s temper: a superb comedian but formidable. Telegraphing acerbic wit and a swirl to own the room, Chinn also tries honest desperation. Everyone sacked (thousands) can never work again in this climate, and maybe have nothing to lose; crucially nothing invested in a state that shows them no loyalty.
Photo Credit: Miles Davies
Photo Credit: Miles Davies
As the comedy turns to farcical tension Act Two morphs into a noirish thriller that keeps walking into doors. From the start people hide from each other, get caught or not, spill out of the closet in threes, make fake phone-calls to someone apparently miles away, create imaginary paint-pots that turn into real ones, hide photo-albums and, too often, hide their feelings. This pitch-perfect cast delivers its confusions.
Comedy’s about restoring the status quo. It’s how the quartet have lived. Is there another way? Who would opt for it? It’s a long way to Stonewall. And an even longer one beyond 2025 when everything’s reversing. There’s never been a more urgent time for this gem of a work: a small hybrid classic that’s never been produced in the UK before. See it now.
Stage Manager Vicky Horder, ASM Rosalind Caldwell, Rehearsal Prompt Jo Newman
Scenic Design/Set Construction Cast & Crew
Lighting and Sound Operation Glenys Harries-Rees, Costumes Christine Fox, Hair Design Frankie Knight, Photography Miles Davies
Special Thanks to Leigh Ward, Gladrags
Photo Credit: Miles Davies
