OTR review: Pass the Salt

Of all the shows OTR has to offer, Pass the Salt was possibly the one I was most looking forward to seeing, and I went down to venue 1 fully expecting to enjoy myself for the next two hours. Fun, light-hearted and rejuvenating, it brought simplicity back to the St Andrews theatre scene: everything it had promised and more.

I think what is most refreshing and pleasurable about Pass the Salt is that it doesn’t take itself seriously. I had a very strong sense of it being a play that was written, put on and performed by people who love theatre and wanted to see their audience leave the room with the sense of having just spent a happy two hours filled with good old-fashioned entertainment. And a clever looking programme.

The basic plot is pretty much as predictable as it gets: Signor Serrano (Joseph Hartropp)’s restaurant, the Mama Rose, is being reviewed by a critic; and as luck would have it, his two waiters Fletcher (Philip Cleary) and Dimitri (David Portmore) have gotten themselves in quite the pickle, in a series of events which promises to rather disrupt the Mama Rose and its guests. Venue 1 was perhaps not the most appropriate setting, as the décor stood out from the rest of the room a bit too much for the theatrical illusion to really work, nonetheless I do appreciate that, there being quite a large number of actors on stage at all times, other more intimate places would not have been possible.

One of Pass the Salt’s many strengths was the instant familiarity that the audience could feel: be it the red and white checked table-cloths, the panto-reminiscent tripping over brooms, the clever use of pop-culture references (sometimes even St Andrews specific ones) or the overly-stereotyped yet endearing characters; it all worked to provide us with a sense of comfort and of ease. Now it must be said that the play took a while to hot up, and for the first fifteen minutes I couldn’t shift the feeling that I perhaps should have been laughing more than I was, but as more characters arrived on stage and as the actors began to truly hit their stride, it was spot on, with the second act perhaps trailing on for a tad too long, but reaching the most satisfying cutesy feel-good ending you could expect.

For all its slapstick delights and what, for lack of a better, more favourable term, I can only describe as cheap laughs, Pass the Salt is not a farce without substance as it also dealt with the role of the critic, particularly in one of the more powerful final scenes with the writer Violet Smith (Tara Rose Cassano) who gave a very lively performance throughout the night; and in the two critics’ soliloquy, probably my favourite scene of the play, not least because of Mrs Sondheimmer’s (Ali Duncan-Young) brilliantly gleeful and ravening ways. Though special mention for acting should also go to Annabella Fraser and Simon Lamb, who embodied the splendidly named MacSporran couple to perfection, it truly might as well have been two eighty year olds on stage last night.

Most of the theatre that I have seen here in St Andrews seems to be turned towards the drama, the tragedy, the edginess, plays that try to shock and confuse the spectator. And though these kinds of plays are often beautifully acted and thought provokingly adapted, this was a welcome change. Go and see Pass the Salt, a show such as this one is too rare in St Andrews not to: it’s all sit back, relax and be their guest.

Pass the Salt continues tonight in Venue 1 at 7.30pm!