Evening Standard from London, Greater London, England • 256

16 WEDNESDAY 24 JUNE 1998 EVENING STANDARD FIRST NIGHT! by Nicholas de Jongh The Old Neighbourhood Royal Court Downstairs THE Old Neighbourhood has the eerie compulsion of a smudged faded photograph which stealthily sharpens into the clarity of revelation What an interesting wealth of sadness David Mamet unfolds in this enthralling jostle of memories and dose encounters when Bobby a middle-aged Jew with his marriage on the rocks returns to the Chicago of his youth The fact of Jewishness is crucial for The Old Neighbourhood in Patrick ravishingly acted production conveys the insecurity of second-generation immigrant Jews in America haunted by the sig- Iron and velvet: Compelling performances from Zoe nificances of exter- Wanamaker and CoGn Stinton Picture: ALASTAIR MUIR mination camps How grim how earnestly loaded with seriousness this may make The Old Neighbourhood sound But no such thing The appeal has to do with its bright nonchalance while masking desolate significance a joshing lightness an amused amusing take upon the glee and rue of friends and family who treat homecoming as a chance to raid the vaults of nostalgia and badmouth the past dark ironic humour still holds How engagingly his characters talk: vaulting from female tirades and male fusillades where batallions of expletives come out fighting dirty and macho to a ruminative eloquence Mamet ranked with Miller Albee and Shepard as finest living playwrights distills the raw rank flavour of people wading down streams of consciousness But Colin compelling Bobby whose style is all rueful melancholia is the exception to the loquaciousness With his swaggering friend Joey (Linal Haft) his married sister Jolly and Deeny who loved him he is the passive sympathising listener who would never do anything so vulgar as wear a bleeding heart on his sleeve The passive stance of Bobby who admits he ignored his one devastating anti-semitic slur is important Mamet names the first of the 75-minute three scenes The Disappearance of the Jews The title surely refers not just to the concentration camp and belief that Jews were persecuted because of their passivity a high-minded lack of aggression also a pervasive anxiety the Jewish race is in danger of losing its purity from intermarriage Bobby regrets his union with a Christian girl Jolly to judge from the blaze of old resentments and fresh grievances stoked up in Zoe terrific filming performance sees only family disaster resulting from her now dead marriage to a non Jew Mamet beautifully catches a Jewish quality of familial closeness and melodramatic extroversion in the meeting of brother and sister Miss Wanamaker iron and velvet by turns is particularly appealing But for all the reminiscent badinage a kind of darkness subtly grows as Bobby faces up to the family ghosts ARBERS finely tuned production on William revolving stage with its sparse props has a ghostly air about it too And when in the last desolate encounter Bobby meets Deeny all flaky glamour and shimmering pain in Diana emotionally overwhelming performance you realise become a sort ghost too a passive husk of a man for whom love and hope are done play of riveting disquiet Ratings adequate it good very good outstanding Xpoor More reviews: Page 52 of A Police probe chase crash death (imw 1 rr i 4 ij: sffiV 24 died instantly after being thrown from his Renault 5 Campus car when it was in collision with a Vauxhall Calibra at Northway Circus on theAl Officers in a marked police car began chasing the Calibra when it accelerated away after passing them at the junction with the A41 at Borehamwood Three boys aged 16 and a girl also 16 are being questioned THE Police Complaints Authority has launched an investigation after a student was killed when a car being pursued by officers crashed into his vehicle Computer student Sandeep Jain HOTiTICK ETS! AG AZI NElFRE EtWITH TOMORROWiSISTANDARP A 4' JASON PfflESTLEYiLIFEAFTER 90210.