In Alan Ayckbourn’s A Small Family Business, an honest man falls prey to his in-laws’ criminal enterprises while trying to float the family industry. Produced by the SBCC Theatre Group, the show stars Paul Canter as Jack McCracken, who prides himself on his unwavering moral compass. “But like any good comedy,” says Canter, “the more uncompromising he is, the farther he has to fall … His arc is one of unraveling throughout the course of the play.”
FAMILY BUSINESS by Alan Ayckbourn, Directed by Katie Laris | Photo: Ben Crop
“It’s a funny play,” says director Katie Laris, “but it also looks at how corruption happens. It begins with taking home a single paper clip from the office. Next, you’re taking home pencils and reams of paper, and it goes from there.” This motif of slippery slope ethics brings down the characters in the play, which Canter calls “brisk and funny with a dark edge.”
A Small Family Business confronts capitalism (or Thatcherism, in the context of the late-1980s script). “It talks about the greed of big business,” says Canter, “and how they extract ungodly wealth and charge an arm and a leg for the basic necessities of life.”
More specifically, says Laris, the play illustrates the void of obsession with material wealth. “When one’s pursuit is only in the realm of fleeting experiences, and life becomes about piling up one thing after another,” she says, “what is really important — like relationships, reputation, taking care of other people, acts of generosity and compassion — there’s a hollowness when those things disappear.”
The show features a realistic interior of a two-story home on stage. The set design serves as four separate, identical houses — sometimes with people from all four homes interacting with the space (in their own houses) at the same time. Expect fast entrances and exits, and the obligatory “slamming doors” of the farcical structure.
The show runs SBCC’s Garvin Theatre (721 Cliff Dr.) March 6–21. For more information, see theatregroupsbcc.com.
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