GETHSEMANE. In rep to 24 February.
London.
GETHSEMANE
by David Hare.
Cottesloe Theatre In repertoire to February 24 2009.
7.30, mats Sat 2.30, also some Weds & Tues.
Runs 2hr 45mins One interval.
Audio-described 2 Jan 7.30, 3 Jan 2.30.
Captioned Mon16 Feb.
TICKETS: 0207 452 3000.
In person: Mon– Sat, 9.30am-8pm.
www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/tickets
Review: Carole Woddis 22 November 2008.
Flawed passion.
Nobody could accuse of David Hare of having left the field. He’s still in there, raging against the forces of darkness. This, he tells us grandiloquently in the programme, is `my third recent play at the National Theatre drawing on public events’.
The first, The Permanent Way (2003) related to the decision to denationalise our railways and its tragic consequences, the second, Stuff Happens (2004) to the engineering of events resulting in our invasion of Iraq. Now Gethsemane fires off salvoes in the direction of the unholy alliance, under New Labour, between politics, fund-raising and the press.
Hare has never had much time for the latter. It was he, after all, who with Howard Brenton coined one of the funniest, most lethal attacks against the press industry back in 1985 with Pravda. Ironically, one of Hare’s strengths, undervalued even by him, is his journalistic skill. He’s great at reporting, collating and sniffing out establishment corruption and conspiracy in high places (he’d make a useful script-writer for Spooks). Where he falters increasingly is in creating believable characters.
So it proves in Gethsemane – his `agony’ at New Labour’s imm/amorality and general seediness.
Described as `fiction’, it doesn’t take much to identify the former PM in Anthony Calf’s Alec Beasley, his fund-raiser-in-chief in Stanley Townsend’s Otto Fallon and a former female Home Office Minister in Tamsin Greig’s Meredith Guest. Add in cynical apparatchiks, Nicola Walker’s idealistic teacher cum failed-concert pianist, some well-tuned one-liners and you could be lulled into thinking you’re watching a trenchant taking of the nation’s pulse. (Interestingly, one line hailing the buoyancy of our economy exposes how dated the play already is, journalistically speaking.)
But here’s the curious thing. Inside this unconvincing comedy of political attitudinising sits another play entirely, one related to family, maternal ambition and love. From this, you’d have to guess that Hare believes that politics and mothering are incompatible and scars.
As Suzette, the daughter of Tamsin Greig’s Home Secretary, Jessica Raine gives a searing portrayal of stroppy, disturbed adolescence. Equally outstanding in the National’s recent Harper Regan, she, at least, has an assured future ahead of her.
Lori Drysdale: Nicola Walker.
Mike Drysdale: Daniel Ryan.
Frank Pegg: Pip Carter.
Otto Fallon: Stanley Townsend.
Meredith Guest: Tamsin Greig.
Suzette Guest: Jessica Raine.
Monique Tooussaint: Gugu Mbatha-Raw.
Geoff Benzine: Adam James.
Alec Beasley: Anthony Calf.
Music played by: Matthew Scott.
Director: Howard Davies .
Designer: Bob Crowley.
Lighting: Mark Henderson.
Sound: Christopher Shutt.
Music: Dominic Muldowney.
Costume: Fotini Dimou.
Projection Designers: Jon Driscol,& Gemma Carrington.
Company Voice Work: Jeannette Nelson.
2008-11-26 20:46:09