Christopher Durang’s The Actor’s Nightmare poses the question of what would happen if a man should wake up on stage and inexplicably be informed that he is expected to understudy an actor he has never met, in a play he has never heard of. Brasenose’s Cuppers team (one of two entered this year by the college) provided us with the answer: thoroughly entertaining comedy.
With one character continually present on stage, the challenge of The Actor’s Nightmare is that it relies on being carried by a lead with the energy and variety of performance to keep the audience engaged during a frantically-paced journey that encompasses Noel Coward, William Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett and Robert Bolt. Fortunately, here Brasenose did not disappoint. Armed with impeccable comic timing and a perpetual expression of bewilderment, Harley Viveash dominated the production with his central performance as the accountant-cum-actor George Spelvin, whilst simultaneously succeeding at the unenviable task of making a cuppers audience laugh at 2.15 in the afternoon.
Whilst the supporting cast had a far less prominent onstage presence than that of the blundering Spelvin, they were by no means simply playing the ‘stooge’ to his antics, and the double acts that emerged were consistently entertaining. The set and lighting were minimal, yet tactfully employed, with a sudden descending spotlight on the hapless Spelvin proving a particularly effective moment in what was a production full of brilliant touches, and one that provided this reviewer with a reminder of the wealth of untapped talent in oxford drama that the cuppers competition helps to shine a light upon.
