There are thirty seven different ways of delivering a vapid “hello”, and the Oxford Playhouse’s fifth week production of Semi-Monde showcases them all. In a swirling, aimless mass of flapper glamour, martinis “with a dash”, and sultry cigarette smoking the cast flounce their way through a series of beautifully aesthetic marital betrayals.
Top flouncing prize goes to Barnabas Iley-Wiliamson playing Albert Hennick, with a close second to Howard Coarse as Cyril Hardacre. Cyril’s moment of glory came, bizarrely, in the midst of a scene change. To the accompaniment of the on-stage jazz band, emulating the feel of a cocktail bar, Cyril raps “Crazy in Love” in the delightfully clipped, hyperbolical Queen’s English that the whole cast pulls off in style. In the world of Semi-Monde, everyone’s a daaarhling.
But underneath their boater hats and fur coats the characters have an affectionate timelessness in their strife. The trials of gendered shopping – “I find it a little dull standing at a stocking counter surrounded by angry women” – ill-disguised jealousy – “she is pretty in a funny sort of way” – and the clash between the romantic and the cynic – “I love you”, “oh do shut up” – all drew chuckles of recognition from the audience.
By the end of the play the unceasing costume changes, the fragmentation and reforming of lunch parties, and the slightly unfathomable habit of cast members to drift vaguely along the back of the stage during someone else’s conversation led to a slight feeling of confusion about what was actually going on. I think that’s okay though. Through the haze of vermouth and cigarette smoke what else can one expect? Especially when one is, as Dorothy Price laments, “all alone in Paris with an amorous Russian”.
