HEROES

London

HEROES
by Gerald Sibleyras translated by Tom Stoppard

Wyndhams Theatre
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat Wed & Sat 3pm
Runs 1hr 30min No interval

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Review: Timothy Ramsden 21 October

Three men and a dog in the same boat.Gerald Sibleyras sets his play in 1959 (2 years before he was born, in Paris). The setting is a quiet, nun-run retreat where 3 Great War veterans pass their last years, mixing immediate worries with great plans, neither having roots in reality. Philippe still carries a piece of German shrapnel in his head, causing sudden fainting fits, but the military content goes little further than that – even the fits are eventually used for a joke.

Sibleyras’ scenes take his old soldier trio from August to the autumnal fall of russet leaves on the walled, tree-lined terrace were they regularly meet, with the gently comic, occasionally touching flavour of a star-cluster vehicle – that is, a piece which exists to allow a small group of lead actors to give the impression of working as an ensemble. The parts must be clearly differentiated, so no-one treads on the others’ territory. There’s Philippe, an observer who doesn’t like to take sides (he’s first seen at the edge, turned away from the others, concentrating on a newspaper), opinionated August, dapper but agoraphobic, and Henri, whom Richard Griffiths invests with a shuffling informality of speech and manner contrasting the others’ sharper manner.

Each character is given a degree of tetchiness, to allow humour, though this always remains reassuringly sympathetic. The characters must be charming, and there needs to be a warm afterglow; here, the play ends with the threesome spread out in individual splendour, yet resembling flying geese in the mutually supportive formation the play carefully describes.

As an acting display, it’s super-efficient with not a glimpse of effort in sight. As a drama it’s gently consoling and very well-mannered, while taking us no closer to the characters and their histories than the terrace is to their individual rooms. This is not the place for probing any fascinating psyches.

And as a translation – well, you’d need to compare in order to know. But does French permit the pun in the play’s funniest line, referring to the ornamental stone dog that, without ever becoming a potent symbol, seems so important in some of these men’s lives?

Henri: Richard Griffiths
Gustave: John Hurt
Philippe: Ken Stott

Director: Thea Sharrock
Designer: Robert Jones
Lighting: Howard Harrison
Sound: Simon Baker
Music: Steve Parry

2005-10-24 19:12:04