Humour in Secret Bridesmaids' Business lost beneath the tulle

By MICHELE HEWITSON

MAIDMENT THEATRE, Auckland - As anyone who has been involved in planning a wedding knows, just beneath the layers of tulle lurk tantrums and secrets.

That old joke about the groom bonking the bridesmaid? It's a cliche which catches perfectly the hysteria and treachery of wedding day expectations.

All of which Secret Bridesmaids' Business seeks to heighten in this twist of the fairy tale by Australian playwright Elizabeth Coleman.

The night before the wedding, the bride, Meg Bacon (Roz Turnbull), her two bridesmaids (Rebecca Hobbs and Rachel Nash) and controlling mother (Donna Akersten) gather in a hotel bedroom.

Mother of the bride has plenty to panic about: the place cards are crooked, the bridesmaids' shoes don't match. The girls do girly bonding stuff: depilate and play truth and dare with a champagne bottle.

Meanwhile the bridesmaids whisper furiously in the corners about whether to tell the bride the groom's dirty little secret. Would a true friend destroy Meg's dreams of the big day, or let her walk up the aisle blissfully unaware?

There are plenty of opportunities here for taking the fairy tale and smashing it to pieces with the mallet of farce. But Secret Bridesmaids' Business feels more like run-of-the-mill sitcom than heightened reality.

It's the humour of recognition which, while mildly funny in a my-mum-behaved-just-like-that sort of way, is never cutting enough to turn cliches into memorable characters.

It doesn't help the illusion of spontaneity either, that its gags are telegraphed so far ahead you can see them coming as surely as you know the groom's going to turn out to be a rat. The cast struggle to create that illusion, the result is a curious flatness as though they're simply going through the motions - and the lines.

The exception is Rebecca Hobbs as Lucy. She's electric enough to dim the wattage of any glowing bride, and anyone on a stage alongside her. But one fine performance is not enough to illuminate a slight amusement running over two hours.

There's a fast, and funny 90-minute comedy in here somewhere, struggling to get out from beneath the tulle.