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Aria Entertainment’s double bill at the Old Red Lion Theatre has a rather oddball feel. ‘The Verb, To Love’ is a sunny musical about romance and discovering oneself staged within a spring garden. ‘Portia Coughlan’ is a melancholic drama about death that has a distinctly wintery feel. Still, they are united in a slick production style which neatly showcases Aria Entertainment’s versatility – so maybe that’s the point.
‘The Verb, To Love’ is the patchier of the two, although in a sea of jukebox musicals it should be celebrated as being entirely new. Its creator – books, music and lyrics – Andy Collyer has taken a number he wrote about a pot plant and a broken heart, and turned it into an hour-long musical monologue about love and that’s its main problem: ‘The Verb, To Love’ feels like a 60-minute song, and not in a good Pink Floyd way.
Jonathan O’Boyle’s warm production boasts a heartfelt performance from Martin Neely and gentle support from accompanist Gareth Bretherton. The songs are prettily inoffensive and the autobiographical observations, while teetering on self-indulgent, feel universal enough to get away with it.
‘Portia Coughlan’ is a heavier affair. An ensemble of 11 fill the Old Red Lion’s intimate stage with a veritable ocean of tense emotion. This is an ISSUE play and the very hard-working cast want us to know it. Not to say they don’t deliver Marina Carr’s Irish story about an unstable young woman who is haunted by the spectre of her dead twin well; this is melodramatic material, kitchen sink drama dressed up as horror show. It often becomes ridiculous, but they perform it with integrity throughout and Susan Stanley’s shattered and shellshocked Portia is compelling.
In both, Nik Corrall’s polished set – that neatly takes us from gardens to rivers, mansions and bars – and Derek Anderson’s existential lighting beautifully illustrate the power of quality design.