Theatre Review: Curtains (Rose Theatre, Kingston)

Its title gesturing cheekily both to the issue of death that’s at its centre, and to the domesticity that constitutes its context, Stephen Bill’s 1987 play Curtains takes a well-worn dramatic situation – a family gathering to celebrate a birthday – in order to explore mortality and the still-controversial issue of the right to die. The birthday girl here is Ida, a pain-wracked and wheelchair-bound 86-year-old whose family – daughters Katherine and Margaret, their spouses Geoffrey and Douglas,  and Katherine and Geoffrey’s son Michael -  seem almost maniacally determined for her to have a jolly good time. Naturally, the day springs some surprises, not least the return to the fold of the youngest daughter, Susan, after a 25-year absence, and the fulfillment of Ida’s own long-held birthday wish.       

Lindsay Posner’s bright revival for Kingston Rose, with its excellent cosy/shabby living room set by Peter McIntosh  (peeling wallpaper, trifle on the table, sunlight through a stained glass window), makes the production itself a mini family get-together by casting the playwright’s son Leo Bill as Michael, the 20-something grandson who, along with the practical neighbour Mrs. Jackson (fine Marjorie Yates) has been Ida’s principal carer. Bill, brilliant in everything from The Glass Menagerie to The School for Scandal to The Silence of the Sea, manages to make something distinctive and interesting of what could be a weak role, relishing Michael’s love of a bad joke and cake-scoffing, while hinting at the insecurities and anger beneath.   

Indeed, Posner’s production opens altogether superbly, with some funny, painful and well-observed interactions. A devastatingly good Sandra Voe conveys, with a minimum of dialogue, Ida’s frustration, anger and sheer weariness, as the reluctant birthday celebrant endures her family’s strained, well-meaning attempts at joviality. Despite roving accents, Saskia Reeves, Wendy Nottingham and Caroline Catz  make a good, strongly contrasting sibling trio. (The play can be seen as another Three Sisters variant, of sorts.)

If the second half is less successful, it’s down to the play’s recourse to a too-strident debate on the central issues, one that feels rigged. An element of harangue creeps into the approach, as the playwright's intentions become too obvious. Tim Dutton brings some sharp, wry humour to his performance as  Douglas but the character is too transparently the play’s mouthpiece, and without effective opposition, the drama's interest wanes. 

Still, even if this Alan Ayckbourn-meets-Amour evening doesn’t quite make good on its initial promise, it remains worthwhile for some potent moments, such as the screwy everyday Englishness of Reeves’s nervy Katherine confessing: “I had a breakdown …  I don’t think anyone knew about it.”

Curtains is booking until 17 March. Further information here. 

Theatre Review: The Winslow Boy (Old Vic)

“Let right be done” is the “time-honoured phrase” at the heart of Terence Rattigan’s 1946 play The Winslow Boy, in which a 14-year-old Royal Naval College cadet, Ronnie Winslow, accused of the theft of a five-shilling postal order, finds himself at the centre of a legal battle spearheaded by his father, Arthur, who’s determined to clear his son’s name. Lindsay Posner’s new production, currently in previews at the Old Vic, certainly “does right” by Rattigan’s great play, elegantly revealing its sorrows, its humour and its hopes. Posner recently screwed up The Turn of the Screw at the Almeida, but he’s on form this time around, delivering a beautiful, deeply felt production that’s entirely absorbing and perfectly judged. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine seeing the play served better than it is here.

Rattigan’s writing formed an important part of British cultural life in 2011 – the playwright’s centenary year which saw London productions of Flare Path and Cause Célèbre, revivals of queerish minor gems such as While the Sun Shines and a great Chichester season dedicated to his work (reviews here, here and here), plus Terence Davies’s not-so-great film of The Deep Blue Sea, of course. Like the best of those productions, The Winslow Boy again reveals Rattigan’s strengths as a dramatist: watertight structure, elegant dialogue, perceptive characterisation, humanity of vision. Unlike The Deep Blue Sea and (to a lesser extent) The Browning Version, though, The Winslow Boy doesn’t have sex at its centre (or on its sidelines, either) and so can seem a tamer proposition than those later plays by comparison. A courtroom drama that (praise be) never shows us the inside of a courtroom, it feels like the sort of work that should have dated, with its characters’ earnest musings on justice, innocence and individual liberty.

And yet, without resorting to anything remotely tricksy (his production is "traditional" in the best sense of the word), Posner makes the piece feel fresh and reveals it to be both funny and quirky. Not only do individual lines surprise you with their relevance, but what’s also striking is the way in which the play keeps calling its own dramatic premise into question. Again and again, characters comment on the wisdom of Arthur’s obsession and ponder whether proving Ronnie’s innocence really matters so very much, especially since the boy (endearingly played by Charlie Rowe here) is soon happily ensconced in a new school and seems oddly indifferent to the outcome of the trial himself.

The point of the play is to show us that it does matter, of course. But the tensions that are raised make the drama much more complex, scene by scene, than the quest-for-justice plot suggests. Rattigan lets our sympathies shift throughout, as doubts, anxieties and convictions move from character to character. Ronnie’s pleasure-loving brother Dickie (Nick Hendrix) feels that “pinching’s nothing” and wonders if the fuss made by their father isn’t “much ado about damn all.” Mother, Grace (Deborah Findlay), also poignantly questions the motives of Arthur (Henry Goodman) for continuing the case as the family come under increasing financial and emotional strain. Their feminist daughter, Catherine (Naomi Frederick), shares her father’s conviction about the trial’s importance (though not for precisely the same reasons). But she, like the rest of the family, ends up making a considerable sacrifice for it. This being Rattiganland any such privations are borne “with fortitude,” natch.

The play’s showiest role is that of Sir Robert Morton, the lawyer hired by Arthur to make the family’s case against the Admiralty, and who’s misjudged as “a hard, cold-blooded, supercilious fish” by Catherine. Jeremy Northam’s take on the part in David Mamet’s fine film of the play casts a long shadow but Peter Sullivan invests the character with an engaging wry authority here. Still what counts the most in Posner’s production is the family context, and the actors succeed in fleshing out an entirely convincing dynamic. Proper yet mildly eccentric, loving but seldom friction-free, you believe in them completely as a family unit. Henry Goodman is gripping as the driven patriarch, whose own health suffers for his single-mindedness in pursuing the case. At first it seems that Deborah Findlay is resorting to the mannered mode she employed in the NT’s Timon of Athens last year - voice sliding down at the end of lines; hands stabbing out in gestures - but the performance takes hold gradually, as the actress shows maternal warmth and frustration at Arthur’s obsession finally settling into an amused, what-the-hell exuberance and resolve to enjoy the courtroom spectacle.

Charismatic Nick Hendrix – channelling a similar kind of easy-going charm to that which he displayed a couple of years ago in ETT’s wonderful Eden End – makes Dickie Winslow puppyishly loveable; when, near the end, this genial fellow talks cheerfully about the prospect of going to war (the rumble of which is felt throughout Rattigan’s play, which covers 1912 to 1914) it’s a truly chilling moment. (On a personal note, I quibble with Dickie on just one point: you can indeed “keep late hours in Reading.”)

The expert Naomi Frederick brings exactly the right kind of candour and directness to Catherine, and Jay Villiers does a gem of a supporting turn as the lawyer who loves her, blushing with pride when recognised for his cricketing prowess, but never made a mere figure of fun. Posner’s production, classily designed by Peter McKintosh and lovingly lit by Tim Mitchell, ensures that every encounter between these characters carries its precise emotional weight and the near-3 hour running time zips by. In sum: an exquisite evening that’s not to be missed.

The production is booking until 25 May. Further information at the Old Vic website.

Theatre Review: Grief (Cottesloe, National Theatre)

Hearts break very quietly in a 1950s suburban living-room in Grief, Mike Leigh’s exquisite new play which is currently in previews at the National Theatre and follows this year’s well-received revival of his 1979 play Ecstasy at Hampstead and in the West End. (Despite the complementary one-word titles, there are no direct connections between these two dramas, as had been speculated in some quarters.) Appearing in Terence Rattigan’s centenary year, this new play marks Leigh out - at once surprisingly and not surprisingly at all - as an heir to Rattigan in many ways: an acute anatomist of English reserve, of petty cruelties, of failures in communication and love. Having been dissatisfied with Leigh’s last film, Another Year (2010), on a number of counts, I was delighted to find myself completely absorbed by Grief, a play which ranks, I think, as one of the director’s finest works to date, and certainly one of his most tender, poignant and humane.

The setting is the middle-class household of Dorothy (Lesley Manville), a war widow who resides with her bachelor brother Edwin (Sam Kelly) and teenage daughter Victoria (Ruby Bentall) in a Greater London suburb. The year is 1957, in an England in which signs of social change are just beginning to stir. Changes are occurring within the family, too: Edwin is about to retire and Victoria is preparing for her O’Levels. Though clearly plagued by depression and still affected by her husband’s death, Dorothy is a kind and outwardly cheerful woman, who plays the gracious hostess as she receives visits from her old friends Gertrude (Marion Bailey) and Muriel (Wendy Nottingham). But as the New Year approaches the situation in the household darkens considerably, as mother and daughter come into conflict and the extent of Victoria’s frustration and resentment is revealed.

Fractious parent/teen relationships have been a staple of Leigh’s output from Life is Sweet (1990) to All or Nothing (2002), and they come to form the focus of Grief, a play deeply concerned with generational clashes and the reluctance of parents to accept changes in their children. And Leigh’s delicate and atmospheric production, beautifully lit by Paul Pyant and meticulously designed by Alison Chitty, draws us gently but inexorably into intense intimacy with the characters, pulling our sympathies every which way.

The principal problem with Another Year, for me, was that it resorted to Leigh’s bad habit of setting up over-obvious contrasts between the protagonists and encouraging the audience to pass judgement on them. Grief avoids such traps. Holding more than one perspective in balance, the play simply presents behaviour, and gives us the space to draw our own conclusions. Dorothy’s firm belief in “the rules” and her refusal to yield to her daughter on certain picky points of social propriety are frustrating, yet Manville’s empathetic performance succeeds in showing that the character is motivated by deep concern and love for her child. At times, the play’s portrait of parent/teen communication break-down threatens to teeter on the brink of cliché. But the perceptiveness and emotional exactitude of Leigh and his actors is such that Victoria and Dorothy’s conflicts stir many small shocks of recognition. Registering distress with the slightest flinch, the brilliance of Manville’s subtle, captivating performance is that it keeps us attuned to Dorothy’s feelings all the time: we have the sense of watching her thinking, in close-up, throughout. And she’s well-matched by the excellent Bentall, who unpicks Victoria’s terseness to reveal a truly disturbing sense of alienation and tendency towards self-sabotage: her final (wordless) scene may haunt you for days to come.

The production’s rhythm is extremely satisfying: the scenes flow elegantly, each carrying its precise emotional weight, and revealing some gem of perception or resonant detail, while generating a strong cumulative tension across the interval-less two hour running time. (And Leigh isn’t afraid of moments of silence and stillness on stage, either.) As in Topsy-Turvy (1999) and Vera Drake (2004) the director again proves himself a master at writing believable period dialogue too: the interactions here feel totally authentic, emerging out of the social context in a way that never seems forced or contrived. When Dorothy, Gertrude and Muriel reminisce about their work as telephonists, or when Edwin and Dorothy talk about their parents, these moments have a genuine weight. (The sequences benefit from the performers’ shared professional history as “Leigh regulars,” too.) And the scenes in which Manville and Kelly sing together - with the lyrics of songs like “Goodnight Sweetheart,” “Smile,” and “Apple Blossom Time” expressing the deep feelings that the characters aren’t otherwise able to articulate - are simply lovely; they suggest such a close, intuitive brother/sister bond that the progressive deterioration of Dorothy and Edwin’s relationship is truly upsetting to witness. Again, the challenge of human contact is Leigh’s primary concern throughout. A scene in which Bailey’s garrulous Gertrude finds Dorothy in distress and the two women almost - but don’t quite - win their way through to honest communication is especially moving.

There’s also lovely work from Dorothy Duffy as Dorothy’s brash, no-nonsense new cleaner, Maureen, and, in particular, from David Horovitch as Hugh, the jovial Doctor friend of Edwin’s who drops by to boast about his son’s achievements and giggle over his own witticisms.

Those who prefer the more savage and satirical side to Leigh may be disappointed in Grief, a play which, while rich in humorous moments, avoids the snide tone that can crop up in his work. (The director certainly seems to be mellowing on class issues: following the glowing endorsement given to those smug bourgeois Tom and Gerri in Another Year, the middle-class matrons here are subjected to only the most affectionate mockery.) As in other Leigh texts, there’s also a certain inevitability to the trajectory of the piece: you may find yourself wishing for a less predictable ending. But that doesn’t stop the conclusion from packing a terrific emotional punch. Perfectly pitched and powerfully affecting, this great production is one of the strongest that the National Theatre has offered us in a patchy year. Good Grief indeed.

The production runs for two hours without interval and is booking until 28^th January. Many performances are already sold-out but further information is available at the NT website.