Catch-22 @ Oxford Playhouse

Punishment or promotion? Whichever is chosen by his superiors for the rebellious US airman Yossarian at the start of Catch-22 becomes his lot again as the play advances to its conclusion nearly three-and-a-half hours later. So the end is the beginning as far as this adaptation of Joseph Heller’s seminal 1961 anti-war novel is concerned. Quite a bit in between is a little samey too.

Heller came up with his own stage version, having ruled others unsuited to the task. This may explain why the axe was not wielded to the text with the necessary vigour. I see no reason, though, why Rachel Chavkin, directing for Northern Stage, could not have steeled herself to the task.

Mike Nichols’s 1971 film, tapping into the mood of opposition to the Vietnam War at the time, was considered by many critics to be over-long at two hours. In comparison, the play seems endless, especially when watched, as it was by the Playhouse audience on Tuesday, in conditions of blistering heat (what has happened to the theatre’s air conditioning?).

It has to be said, though, that it was being followed with rapt attention by those around me in the stalls, including a large party from a local prep school. Perhaps, like me, they were struggling to understand the twists in the plot.

This is a difficulty aggravated in part by Chavkin’s decision to set the action around designer Jon Bausor’s stage-dominating life-size replica of a B-25 bomber — the fuselage and one wing, at least — which makes it hard for us at times to know quite where we are.

Then there is the confusion arising from an extensive gallery of characters — many in identical uniforms — being played by just nine actors. This necessitates the tripling, even quadrupling, of roles, in all cases save that of the excellent Philip Arditti who gives a sympathetic tour-de-force portrayal of Yossarian.

He is the bombardier wanting out from an endless series of dangerous flying missions against the Nazis, only to be told that faking madness won’t work as simply providing proof, in the circumstances, of his sanity. This, of course, is the famous ‘catch-22’, Heller’s addition to our dictionaries to compare with Orwell’s ‘Big Brother’ or Horace Walpole’s ‘serendipity’.

Other star turns are supplied by Michael Hodgson as the barking mad squadron boss Colonel Cathcart and David Webber as his machiavellian subordinate Major Major. The shady business dealings of mess officer Milo Minderbinder — a racketeer to outdo even Sgt Bilko — are nicely presented by Christopher Price, with the fine comic touch he also brings to the role of the drawling Texan.

The love story that supplements the satirical comedy is well conveyed in the tender scenes between the naive 19-year-old Nately (Daniel Ainsworth) and the Italian prostitute Luciana (Victoria Bewick). The down-to-earth acceptance of the realities of war shown by her family members — Liz Kettle’s Old Italian Woman and Michael Hodgson’s Old Italian Man — supplies welcome interludes of sanity amid the madness.

Catch-22
Oxford Playhouse
Until Saturday
01865 305305, oxfordplayhouse.com