HOME To 1 August.

Bath.

HOME
by David Storey.

Theatre Royal Bath In rep to 1 August 2009.
11am 1 Aug.
7.30pm 23, 24, 27, 30 July.
Runs 1hr 45min One interval.

TICKETS: 01225 448844.
www.theatreroyal.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 22 July.

A sense of reality spun out of light material.
Modern English theatre began, of course, on the evening of 8 May 1956 with the premiere of John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger at the Royal Court Theatre. Fourteen years later the Court premiered David Story’s Home. Though Storey was something of a house dramatist there, in Lindsay Anderson’s productions, this is about as different from Look Back as could be.

Both might be classed ‘state of the nation’ plays. In Stephen Unwin’s revival for the 2009 Peter Hall Company at Bath, the point’s made on Paul Wills’ set by the union flag drooping on a mast as a day anonymously passes, the only other feature being slow moving, eventually darkening clouds.

But whereas Osborne’s Jimmy Porter thundered his views in fistfuls of driven words, Storey, in this play, works through insinuation, creating a thin tracery so delicate there’s hardly anything there, but which allows implications to be perceived through the gaps. The closer mid-fifties parallel is probably Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, though by emphasising realistic elements, Unwin puts the writing’s elusive quality under strain.

Even the nature of this ‘Home’ is never stated. It’s large, extending as far as anyone can see. And it has room for thousands of inhabitants – potentially, a nation, summarised in five characters.

The elderly Harry and Jack open with their elegiac recollections, Harry’s vague manner offset by Jack’s brimming confidence, correcting his companion’s mistaken recognitions of others. They’re like fellow club-members who might have been found in badge-bearing blazers, sharing stories over a pint in the pub, accepting each other’s accounts to boost their images of themselves. David Calder and Stephen Moore delineate the contrast, Calder’s hesitancy feeding-off Moore’s certainty, itself boosted by Harry following his lead.

If the men romanticise their past, the women are present-day and earthy. Nichola McAuliffe’s Marjorie and Lesley Joseph’s Kathleen - Marj and Kath – are down a social-step or two, abrasive or looking with coarse laughter for innuendo, realistically, rather than judgementally, aware of the truths underlying the men’s pretensions. They capture the uncertainty of the times, with the future represented only by compulsive furniture lifter Alfred.

Harry: David Calder.
Jack: Stephen Moore.
Marjorie: Nichola McAuliffe.
Kathleen: Lesley Joseph.
Alfred: Matthew Wilson.

Director: Stephen Unwin.
Designer: Paul Wills.
Lighting: Peter Mumford.
Sound: Gregory Clarke.
Assistant director: Natascha Metherell.

2009-07-24 15:21:35