"Stepping out" in Limassol

It is not often that starved theatre enthusiasts in Limassol have a long weekend of good activity to look forward to. It is even rarer for an amateur drama production to be so brilliant.

Friends Theatre Group's adaptation of Richard Harris's famous comedy "Stepping Out" was staged in Limassol from 13th to 16th March at Theatre Ena.

The theatre was packed each of the four evenings that ‘Stepping Out’ was staged. Audience seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the production, involved, gasping and laughing all the way. ‘Stepping Out’ has been successfully staged any number of times in the world , even having been made into a feature film.Director Sue Ioannides did another brilliant job of it with her motley cast, bringing out the finer nuances and richness of each character beautifully.

It may have won the Evening Standard Comedy of the Year award in 1984, but this play is as much a comedy as an uplifting, feel good, heart warming, human story where characters are all too recognizable as the people we meet everyday. It is a story of a class of amateur tap dancers, nine women and one man, and their teacher who struggles to organise this assorted group into some form of order to produce one synchronized performance. The story is of their transformation from clumsy individuals of varying dancing abilities to a group that are worthy of performing as a team for an audience.

The characterization has been superbly done, everyone perfectly suited for the character they played. Lucy Georgiou, who played Mavis the hapless teacher, is a consummate actress and a brilliant dancer. She was every bit the failed actress with big dreams who has to teach this group of wannabe tappers, but who loves dancing nevertheless, aptly underlined by her scintillating solo performance.
Linda Economides was the perfect choice to be Mrs. Fraser, the pianist who has snide observations about everyone and every situation, not only for her acting abilities but for her background in piano teaching which meant she could play live on stage rather than synchronise with playback music.

The tappers were highly credible as the characters they portrayed - the efficient, organized Lynne (Tracey Dyer) , the high strung Dorothy(Maxine Norcott), the pushy, loud mouthed Maxine (Carol Bailey), the reticent, abused Andy(Sara McWhinnie), the low down, cheap, gum-chewing Sylvia(Helen Arnous), the hygiene obsessed, snobbish Vera(Helen Michael), the happy go lucky Rose (Fiona Brown) and the only male character, middle aged insurance agent Geoffrey(Nick Rich).

I thought everyone was fantastic and Sharon Montague must be an amazing choreographer to bring out the gradual progression of a bumbling, fledgling group into people who could produce the fabulous dance routine at the end.

My personal favourites though were Lucy Georgiou, Carol bailey and Helen Arnous, simply because I see these people often and they were so completely unrecognizable from their real life selves, which to my mind is the success of an artist. Lucy is the patient teacher like in the play who can get her students to do anything but I have added a whole lot of new adjectives to the list that I had for her already - energetic, young, flexible, beautiful and what a dancer ! Carol bailey is actually the politest, sweetest person with the kindliest smile, and is everything that Maxine is not. Helen especially who is a very dear friend was so eerily authentic as Sylvia, when she is actually a lawyer by education and one of the most glamorous, sophisticated people I know.

/VanG/