AFTER HAGGERTY. To 17 June.

London

AFTER HAGGERTY
by David Mercer

Finborough Theatre To 17 June 2006
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Sun 3.30pm
Runs 2hr 35mon One interval

TICKETS: 0870 4000 838
www.finnboroughtheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 11 June

Bold drama timidly revived.
After Haggerty starts the Finborough’s ‘rediscoveries’ season. Also including rarely seen plays by Gerhart Hauptmann and Rolf Hochhuth, this explores various ways the political and personal mesh in drama. Add a recent Galsworthy and the Sunday night truffles of Victorian and Edwardian musicals, plus a range of new work from round the world, and Earl’s Court rather than the South Bank seems the place to find the internationally-minded repertory due from a national theatre company.

This enterprising venue is remarkable on London’s fringe-theatre scene, despite having to survive the (temporary) closure of the pub above which it stands, and of the shop next door where gasping theatregoers might alternatively have gone for a drink between David Mercer’s substantial acts in sweltering summer conditions.

Mercer was a big-hitter in 1960s TV drama, scripting several pioneering ‘Wednesday Play’s, and by 1970, with After Haggerty, he was becoming new-play darling of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He offers actors, especially males, big, rolling roles with verbal incandescence and pointed strikes. Until it went wrong, with Duck Song being howled critically off the stage later that decade, his freewheeling, wide-hitting writing brought vigour and bite to British drama.

In view of Duck Song’s fate, it’s apt the man at After Haggerty’s centre, Bernard Link, is a theatre critic. He’s a suffering central character around whom things happen. While he rents Haggerty’s London flat, the owner’s off fighting as a guerrilla. Bernard visits political hotspots but only to lecture tamely on British drama. Personal battles turn up with the arrival of Haggerty’s deserted wife (plus baby) and Bernard’s working-class father, flooded out from Doncaster.

Mercer’s energy excludes neatness, building a picture rather than presenting a case. David Cann gives Bernard a put-upon persistence while Bernard Kay’s Father has the self-assured stolidity of someone with a fixed and limited way of life. Cristina Gavin brings an equivalent initial fearsomeness to Haggerty’s American spouse, with her critique of Britishness. But her excessive verbal speed swallows some of Claire’s forcefulness. And more vigorous direction, with a stronger basic pulse would have brought this rare revival more completely to life.

Bernard: David Cann
Claire/Russian Translator/Cuban Translator/Actor: Cristina Gavin
Roger/Hungarian Translator/1st Man/Actor: Guy Lewis
Chris/Czechoslovakian Translaotr/2nd Man/Actor: Jon Foster
Father: Bernard Kay

Director: Kirsty Housley
Designer: Ellan Parry
Lighting: Richard Williamson
Sound: Matt Downing

2006-06-15 01:58:27