Keeping up appearances

The news that the Royal Court is running an “Upstairs Downstairs” season might conjure notions of corny comedies about what the butler saw. In fact, this is a selection of plays first seen in the theatre’s smaller auditorium, where their success has prompted a transfer to the main stage. First of the three is Marius von Mayenburg’s black comic study of society’s obsession with appearance, wittily translated from German by Maja Zade.

The Ugly One

Mayenburg’s central character is Lette, proud inventor of the 2CK plug connector, whose world falls apart when his employer tell him he is too ugly to promote his invention at a conference, and that his better-looking assistant must take his place. Lette seeks help from a plastic surgeon, who transforms him by giving him the perfect face. A brief episode of fame and fortune follows, with women throwing themselves at him and money dropping into his lap. But so desirable is Lette’s new face that soon anyone with enough cash has bought the same visage, and, nightmarishly, Lette starts to see replicas of himself all over town. His stock falls and his identity disintegrates. Who, or what, is the real Lette?

It feels like a cautionary fairytale for the modern age. Mayenburg takes his scalpel to the current fixation with makeovers, botox and surgery, with size zero and the struggle to preserve youth at all costs. He peels back the advertising business’s persistent endorsement of the elusive goal of physical perfection and delves into questions about individuality.

But the pleasing thing about his play is that he does all this with a twinkle in his eye. And Ramin Gray’s astute, engagingly performed production matches the mood of the piece perfectly. Before the play starts, the four actors mill about on the unadorned stage. They emphasise the play’s fascination with role-playing by slipping from one character to another without even moving – Simon Paisley Day playing all the authority figures, Frank McCusker (above, right) playing Lette’s rivals and Amanda Drew representing the females in his life. Michael Gould (above, left), meanwhile, as the increasingly disturbed Lette, scoots between them on a wheeled office chair. The play has the limitations of any satire. But it is as short, sharp and seductive as the surgeon’s knife.

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