HONOR.
London.
HONOUR
by Joanna Murray-Smith.
Wyndhams Theatre.
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat Wed & Sat 3pm.
Runs 1hr 40min No interval.
TICKETS: 0870 950 0925.
Review: Timothy Ramsden 18 February.
Drama of re-forming lives will be especially strong for those seeing it for the first time.
There will be two London audiences seeing David Grindley’s revival of Joanna Murray-Smith’s marital breakdown drama; those who saw Roger Mitchell’s 2003 Cottesloe production, and those who didn’t. The Cottesloe’s smaller stage and neutral screens from which characters emerged for their next segment of the action worked supremely well.
In comparison the table and bookcases on Wyndhams’ stage, surrounded by rows of semi-glimpsed wooden chairs (presumably waiting for the audiences who would flock to hear self-styled intellectual writer George’s every public statement), seem a compromise to fill the space. There is, though, an aptness to the 2-stage removal of the table across which George initially expounds his finely-crafted sentences to young interviewer Claudia and across which he talks, complacently self-satisfied, with Honor, the wife of 3 decades who has foregone her own writing career. As the table goes, George discards life with Honor, taking up a new existence with Claudia.
She's potentially the most interesting of the 4 characters (there’s also Sophie, George and Honor’s daughter, slightly younger than Claudia). Claudia’s genuine feeling for George goes with looking for what the relationship will provide her, which is different from George’s grandiose, self-centred idea of his new life. Honor, now she’s alone, finds renewed success as a writer. Whereas George, who’s lost Honor with and without the ‘u’, will clearly be left adrift.
People seeing the play for the first time won’t be bothered by comparisons of staging. But in a play where each shortish scene features just 2 characters the semi-realism of the proscenium does little to reflect the play’s snapshot moments, which often resonate with what’s preceded by a scene or two.
Diana Rigg and Martin Jarvis are, of course, accomplished, if not offering any surprises. Natascha McElhone does; her attempts to shape the relationship to her needs, her looks of disillusion and distaste as George continues assuming life will shape itself according to his needs, are things he misses in his self-obsession. And Georgina Rich is fine in Murray-Smith’s least-developed role. So the production has an honourable, if not ideal, place on the West End stage.
Honor: Diana Rigg.
George: Martin Jarvis.
Claudia: Natascha McElhone.
Sophie: Georgina Rich.
Director: David Grindley.
Designer: Liz Ascroft.
Lighting: Jason Taylor.
Sound: Gregory Clarke.
Music: Simon Slater.
2006-02-22 14:04:06