THE STAGE
                     and television today
                                              Established 1880

September 21, 1972                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
                                              WEEK IN
                                                  THE
                                              THEATRE

                                               Taken for
                                                a ride

THE YOUNG American writer Joseph Praml is new to British theatre, but on the evidence of his one-acter “The Trick” he has something worthwhile to offer. Presented as a lunchtime production at Richmond’s Orange Tree pub on September 15, this play shows the author has a firm grasp of dramatic construction, coupled with an ability to allow characters to develop  as the play progresses: two points up on many a budding one-act playwright.

     His themes are familiar enough but their juxtaposition is original. He shows two gauche young men in a bar arranging fees with a couple of attractive whores, and their lack of assurance is bolstered by the delaying tactics occasioned by a man’s suicide attempt from the ledge of a building opposite. Predictably they get taken for a ride, by barman as well as girls, but they also gain from the first-hand knowledge of the impermanence of life and the certainty of death.

     Mr. Praml uses verbal imagery of  sometimes penetrating accuracy, so that one is constantly aware of his characters as human beings and not just agents in a plot. Matthew Walters and Isobel Nisbit create a distinctive relationship as the modest boy Pin and Babette, the quieter of the girls, revealing the glimmer of something deeper just for a moment, and Vanessa Kempster as the brassy Yvette, preferring judgment to mercy, is a hard-core foil to Sean Arnold’s hopeful lecher. Rod Beacham directed.
                                                                                               D.F.B.

Herald Tribune, London

   Powerful little play
​
   from the Fringe

SHOULD you have a free lunch-hour this week you would do well to pop down to the Richmond Fringe Theatre in Kew Road to see a powerful little play called “The Trick,” by a young American writer, Joseph Praml.

Set in a seedy American bar, the play appears to revolve around the efforts of two middle-class businessmen to come to some financial arrangement with a couple of prostitutes. They are constantly distracted however, by the spectacle of a man across the way preparing to jump off a ledge.

In the bar life goes on almost as normal—the whores haggling over prices; the bartender overcharging for drinks, whilst grimly repeating his slogan—“This is a good place to have a good time in.”

And this is really what the play is saying—the commercial world waits for no one. Business must go on in spite of human drama.

On another level the play explores the theme of alienation in modern society. Or, again, it can be seen as a subtle religious allegory.

Despite the obvious production difficulties in a small room with no suitable lighting equipment, the play comes over very well. The sound effects are simple but successfully create an atmosphere of suspense.

Directed by Rod Beacham, “The Trick” has a distinguished cast with an impressive catalogue of stage and T.V. appearances.

Vanessa Kempster is particularly striking as the forceful Yvette, and Matthew Walters gives a sensitive performance as Pin.
​
The author, Joseph Praml, 31, has written several other plays which have proved popular in the States. This is his first production to be performed in England.
                                                                                            JENNIE BOND
                                        Herald Tribune, Thursday, September 21, 1972