ALISON'S HOUSE To 7 November.

Richmond.

ALISON’S HOUSE
by Susan Glaspell.

Orange Tree Theatre 1 Clarence Street Richmond TW9 2SA To 7 November 2009.
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Sat 3pm & 15m, 22 Oct 2.30pm (+ post-show discussion).
Audio-described 13 Oct, 17 Oct 3pm.
Runs 2hr 20min One interval.

TICKETS: 020 8940 3633.
ww.orangetreetheatre.co.uk
Preview: Timothy Ramsden 12 October.

A play of ultimate satisfaction rather than instant gratification.
No-one else in Britain’s doing Susan Glaspell’s plays these (or any other recent) days, so it’s the Orange Tree or nothing for this American writer. By the interval, a substantial way through, nothing might seem the better option. This 1931 family drama, the author’s final play, is slow-burning.

Glaspell looks back to a time she knew, setting events on the 19th century’s final night, eighteen years since the death of Alison Stanhope (evidently based on Massachusetts poet Emily Dickinson, many of whose poems were discovered posthumously by family members).

The non-literary Stanhopes are selling the family home to Hodges, a property developer (a touch of the Cherry Orchards here), a breezy no-nonsense type with a wife to whom Catherine Harvey gives a quietly sympathetic manner.

Then, in the final act, dramatic fire lights, as the play moves within Alison’s house to the room where she wrote. A further cache of poems come to light, following the death of Alison’s sister Agatha, with instructions they be burned. What follows is an urgent debate over their fate.

Suddenly the experience of Elsa (a tactfully energetic Gráinne Keenan), who escaped the family for years with her lover, zooms into focus. What Alison desired and denied herself has added to the literary world, but opens the family to potential embarrassment.

The late poet’s paterfamilias brother can’t face the prospect of their publication. Christopher Ravenscroft’s character turns from gravity and tolerance to raging fury, though writer and actor maintain understanding for him. Alison’s house, and her century, are going; her personal reputation, more important to him than literature, needs guarding.

Dudley Hinton’s young Ted, arguing to keep the new poems to help him make the grade at school, has a less sympathetic motive – doing the right thing for the wrong reason - while Nicholas Gadd’s journalist, cold-calling on the night of this scoop, is genuinely interested in Alison’s work. Jo Combes’ production gives space to the formal language, and depth to the moral debate, as well as ultimate theatrical suspense until midnight strikes, bringing a sense literature and lives alike are saved by the bell.

Ann Leslie: Jennifer Higham.
Jennie: Diana Payan.
Richard Knowles: Nicholas Gadd.
Ted Stanhope: Dudley Hinton.
Louise: Emma Pallant.
John Stanhope: Christopher Ravenscroft.
Miss Agatha: Georgine Anderson.
Eben: Mark Arends.
Elsa: Gráinne Keenan.
Hodges: Kieron Jecchinis.
Mrs Hodges: Catherine Harvey.

Director: Jo Combes.
Designer: Robyn Wilson.
Lighting: John Harris.
Voice coach: Stephen Kemble.
Assistant directors: Lora Davies, Emma Faulkner.

2009-10-13 11:50:48