HEARTBREAK HOUSE. To 17 October.
Pitlochry.
HEARTBREAK HOUSE
by George Bernard Shaw.
Pitlochry Festival Theatre In rep to 17 October 2008.
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat 17 Sept, 4, 9 Oct 2pm.
Runs 2hr 50min One interval.
TICKETS: 01796 484626.
www.pitlochry.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 23 August.
Good-looking, as ever at Pitlochry, but a misted-over revival.
With whatever mixture of irony and assurance, author Bernard Shaw declared he held this play back during the First World War as its performance would weaken wartime morale; instead he offered O’Flaherty VC, a one-act “recruiting pamphlet” proclaiming Irishmen would join the British army not out of patriotism but in order to escape their womenfolk.
Heartbreak House is not only far longer (Pitlochry tries mitigating this by having just one interval, but the play has a three-act structure and the 90-minute plus second part would benefit from the second intended break). It’s an attempt to write in the “Russian style”, by which Shaw means Chekhov. There could be few writers GBS was less equipped to follow, and his comprehension of the Russian writer seems even more limited than his view of Ibsen.
The country house of the title is a ship of state, reflected by Charles Cusick Smith’s set, as by designers of many recent Heartbreaks. Its oldest inhabitant, Captain Shotover, is a former seaman and occasional inventor of instruments for war (very profitable) and peace (less so) – Shaw clearly hasn’t forgotten Major Barbara. Heartbreak House is also cultured, leisured Europe before the war; primarily England with its affluent members of society divided into the artistic Heartbreakers and the no-nonsense hearty types of Horseback Hall. Sisters Hesione and Ariadne represent the two here.
Though not so clearly as they might. A general stylish lassitude affects Richard Baron’s production, taken over at apparently short notice from snowed-under Pitlochry Artistic Director (now also Chief Executive) John Durnin. It leaves Dougal Lee’s cunning capitalist Mangan unconvincingly lacking in force (Mangan’s socially awkward but quietly steely in business) and Sarah Stanley trotting around as a nurse (a Chekhovian feature, doubtless) over twice her age, as young rep actors used to play such parts in the bad old days.
These are both actors who make strong impressions elsewhere in this season. Richard Addison is an apt Shotover, distracted yet punchy. But the specifics of the argument, the contrast of different parts of society, are shrouded in an approach that favours external mannerisms over clarity and detail.
Ellie Dunn: Helen Millar.
Nurse Guinness: Sarah Stanley.
Captain Shotover: Richard Addison.
Lady Utterword: Jacqueline Dutoit.
Hesione Hushabye: Karen Davies.
Mazzini Dunn: Robin Harvey Edwards.
Hector Hushabye: Jonathan Coote.
Boss Mangan: Dougal Lee.
Randall Utterword: Richard Stemp.
Burglar: Martyn James.
Director: Richard Baron.
Designer/Costume: Charles Cusick Smith.
Lighting: Ace McCarron.
Sound: Ronnie McConnell.
2008-09-07 11:03:48