A grim, grimy, tenement flat in the Gorbals in the Thirties, together with an escapist patch of grassy park-land, serve as suitable back-cloths for CP Taylor's rueful comedy of great expectations and unrealised hopes.
This vividly acted co-production by Dumbfounded theatre and Oxford Stage company cannot disguise Bread and Butter's lack of dramatic vitality or momentum. It does, though, remind us of the valuable social perspectives of Taylor, who was born to Jewish immigrants in Glasgow and wrote prolifically before his premature death in 1982.
Bread and Butter sounds a stoic requiem for a brave new world by contrasting the personalities of two Jewish Glaswegians. They are bosom friends in 1931, when Ramsay MacDonald abandons Labour and heads a national government.
They are still close during Harold Wilson's 1964 administration. The selfabsorbed Morris, played with the right absurd dash by Gerry Lepkowski, exudes a spirit of wild, political optimism to which his best friend, Alec, a presser in a clothing factory, can never rise.
Taylor pokes affectionate fun at Morris, who sees no further than the permanently delayed revolution: Hitler is only against rich Jews, Morris says in 1933, typically predicting Communism is just round the German corner.
"It's the last wave that breaks through the castle gates," he says in married old age, still seduced by optimism's sirencall. By comparison, Michael Wilson's timid Alec, even after the death of his prim wife (Pauline Turner), frees him for the sexual opportunities he dares not take, treats life as if bound to be a victim of it.
Mark Rosenblatt's rather old-fashioned production refuses to read between Taylor's enigmatic lines and to charge the men's friendship with an unspoken intensity that would lend the play the driving interest it lacks.
Until 27 November. Information: 020 7328 1000.
Bread And Butter
