How to Build a Better Tulip. Photo: Flavia Fraser-Cannon

How to Build a Better Tulip
Upstairs at the Gatehouse

Mark R Giesser throws so much into his play that it drowns in subplots. How to Build a Better Tulip is neatly staged, but accents waver, diction is poor and the actors rush, sometimes garble their lines, in an unnecessary frenzy that appears to be of the playwright-director’s making.

This makes it hard for the audience to keep on top of the numerous twists and intrigues. Just when one has grasped one conflict, another looms into view.

If only Giesser had stuck to Alexandre Dumas’ 1850 novel about a Dutch grower’s attempts to breed the perfect black tulip. Instead we have biological warfare, sparring botanists, eco-terrorism and a ridiculously convoluted family tree that results in most of the characters being related to one another.

Recently returned from Bolivia, Audrey (Jill Greenacre) accepts a second-rate university research position to develop a strain of maize. She’s unhappy to learn that she has to share a greenhouse with petunia lover Adrian Vanderpol (Christopher Killik). It swiftly becomes clear that both are hiding their true intentions.

They are haunted by two belligerent Dutch ghosts, Carolus Hoofdorn (Richard Lynson) and Cornelia Vanderpol (Bryony Tebbutt) who, centuries earlier, had attempted to develop the perfect black tulip.

The farce would have benefited from the actors playing it straight instead of exaggerating their actions and mugging between lines. There are also several American references that have little to do with the Lincolnshire setting and may baffle a British audience – the play premiered off-Broadway in 2004.

It’s a shame because Upstairs at the Gatehouse is a delightful venue that repeatedly punches above its weight, but this production falls short of their usual fare.

It tries too hard to be funny and ends up falling flat.

Until November 20
upstairsatthegatehouse.com