What is Susan's Secret?

‘What is Susan’s Secret’ is one of the poorer comedies by the normally excellent, Michael and Susan Parker. The play is showing at the Rockingham Castle Theatre, 8 Attwood, Rockingham nightly until Saturday 16^th June. Evening performances are at 7.30 pm, with one matinee on Sunday 10^th at 2.00 pm.

      The curtains open to show a very good set (Peter Scarrott, Terry Winter, Rob Walker and David Heckingbottom) it is of a slightly run down, USA country hotel called ‘The Cider Mill Inn’.

     A man is sleeping in an armchair; he is Michael (Andy Walker) the middle-aged, co-owner of the inn. His wife, Susan (Larraine Craig) tries to wake him up, but Michael is in deep sleep, imagining that he is starring in an old movie. The movie he dreams changes from day to day.

     Larry (Lee Walker) and his wife, Jean (Tarryn Cook) arrive for the hotel’s generous weekend special, however, on registering the couple find that the offer is not all that it seems. They are closely followed by young newlyweds, Bobby (Luke Walker) and his beautiful wife, Jenny (Abby Osborn). Bobby adores his bride, but after having a horrendous demand made upon her by her husband on their wedding night, Jenny no longer wishes to share his bed.

       A week later, a very smart gentleman, Bill Herman (Peter Scarrott) arrives, and is a hotel reviewer; the hosts, of course, are unaware. The only other guest is the sexy Miss Munroe (Sue Murray) that is until the world’s most boring carpenter, Jeffrey (Rob Walker) and his extremely tolerant wife, Penny (Emma Muller) arrive. Penny has her very own way of ignoring her husband’s rants.

       When things cannot possibly get worse, Bertha, Michael’s sister (Sharyn McCaskey) turns up for the weekend.

If you want people to come and see your show, please go back to lighting up the outside of the building. It is a good advert to locals, who wouldn’t otherwise know that you are even there. There was no box office, (there is a very good one, but it was closed) … ‘but perhaps you can get tickets at the bar’. The bar staff had the audience plan, however they didn’t know the ticket prices. On paying my money, ‘sorry we haven’t any tickets, but you know which are your seats!’

You have a great venue, make the most of it. Get the place warm, and don’t rely on an audience member getting up after about ten minutes of the play, to tell you the heating isn’t on. Don’t ask the audience at the interval if they are warm enough now and can you put the heating back off – it only costs about half the price of a ticket to heat the place for the two hours.

Now the play. For years I have held Rockingham up as the prime example of how to put on a farce or comedy, sadly you have now hit the depths. What happened? The pace was well off; probably about 20 minutes could have been cut. I felt that the personalities of the play’s characters had been misunderstood and that the cast, who were trying hard, were playing slightly slapstick when a melodramatic approach for some could have been better. The physical action, normally hilarious, was sluggish and uninventive.

Sadly the old stalwarts were possibly the least effective actors. Some of the newcomers were really getting into the comedy but needed more guidance from the director, David Heckingbottom. A small hint to the new actors, try and go down an octave when delivering your lines, nerves often take you higher than you realise. I do, however, look forward to your next show.

There were quite a few laughs, but many missed opportunities. Sorry, I cannot recommend this show.