On the Ceiling is Nigel Planer's first play. Hopefully it will be the last.
     The action revolves around two artisans, Lapo and Loti, who are contracted to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, under Michaelangelo's direction. Lapo, played by Ron Cook, is a master craftsman, and Loti (Ralf Little) his young apprentice. Beyond that, there is little more to say. After two hours, there is no sense of what either character is about, or even what the play is about beyond painting a fresco. It is, quite simply, two hours of watching paint dry, only less interesting. One learns that Lapo and Loti think Michaelangelo is "a ponce", a tempermental artist and drama queen. Cue some mincing impressions of their master and much talk of him being "a dilettante, a trifler, an amateur" whilst they are the workers, "flunkies to a Florentine fairy", the epitome of "a service industry to those living on interest." As Lapo says, "You 'ave to be 'ard to fresco."
     You have to be hard to endure two hours of this drivel. Any other content seems thrown in for the sake of argument, or for the sake of what the writer hopes is a pithy line. The nature of genius is discussed, for example, because it creates an opportunity for Lapo to say "Genius is having the right personal shortcomings at the right time." A few lines on intellectual copyright create the opportunity for the exchange,
-"It's two people having the same thought at the same time."
-"I was just going to say that."
     And this was one of the funnier lines! For the sake of actors who, after a promising ten minutes, visibly imploded through lack of interest or faith in their script, the audience gave a smattering of polite laughter. Polite endurance was the only way to counteract the cringeworthy embarrassment of watching actors demeaned by poor writing and poor direction.
     In the hands of Tom Stoppard the banter might have frothed and sparked. In the hands of David Edgar, the 'watching paint dry' scenario might have been rooted in some intellectual content. As it was, the dialogue fell flat and the director, Jennie Darnell (also responsible for the dull 'LifeX3' by Yasmina Reza at the Savoy) did little to create any rapport between the two main actors, that they might redeem the script through stage presence alone. The set could have been provoking, had it shown the beautiful art under discussion, but scaffolding on different levels infront of a beige wall is a sad excuse for an exciting space. Only at the end was the audience given any chance to see snippets of Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel, gradually 'painted in' to great effect, but this was the best moment of the whole play and the audience had to wait two hours for it.
     If we were supposed to be overawed by the great beauty of art, it never happened. Instead there was every sense of listening to an excited teenager who had just discovered Keats for the first time and seen the Sistine Chapel during a gap year in Florence. That is to say, lots of talk about art being "the struggle to be immortal through beauty" and the artist having to negate, forget, himself in order to make art. At one point Loti states "It's not why we do it, but that we do it", namely acting on the artist's creative impulses. These sorts of bald statements are a poor substitute for real intellectual content, and belie a crisis of identity as to whether this play wants to be a drama or a comedy. As it stands, it is neither.
     The only moment where one can identify what is going on, dramatically, is at the beginning of Act Two, when the actors break into a song and dance pantomime routine. Ralf Little raises the tone, but otherwise the audience is left pondering the structural decisions made by the writer. This little interlude would have been far better suited as an opener, rather than tacked on wherever it might fit. And even though it is a marginally more entertaining scene than the rest, it is not demanding for actor or audience to enjoy camping it up. Bring on the Widow Twanky dress, the lute, and the Monty Python shuffling and everyone instantly knows where they are and what to do.
     However, such moments cannot be sustained for long, and it is with a sinking heart that the audience sees the same scenario as in Act One reappear for Act Two, a scenario in which the use of expletives stands for comedy. Members of the audience visibly flinched as Ron Cook delivered yet another stream of obscenities, from a script that displays all the maturity of Christopher Hitchens and George Galloway during their recent slanging match. This is tedious, clunky, irredeemable, and not worthy of a place on a West End stage.
Laura Keynes