IN PRAISE OF LOVE. To 8 July.
Chichester
IN PRAISE OF LOVE
by Terence Rattigan
Minerva Theatre To 8 July 2006
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Wed & Sat 2.15pm
Audio-described 5 July 7.45pm
Runs 2hr 50min One interval
TICKETS: 01243 781312
www.cft.org.uk
box.office@cft.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 1 July
Catch it while you can.
This year’s Minerva repertoire consists mainly of lesser-knows Rattigan and Coward; off-cuts of traditional Chichester fare. But neither Coward’s Tonight at 8.30 one-acters nor this late, much-revised Rattigan is the sort of stuff most theatres wheel out in the safe and sacred names of those playwrights.
Originally a substantial one-act play itself, Rattigan extended this story of a former Soviet-Estonian agent married to a self-absorbed English literary intellectual to full-length. Rather too full-length perhaps; the first act eventually outstays its material.
But the painstaking detail that emerges as the play’s 2 successive evenings proceed is joyous to behold. When a major playwright puts this much effort into his characters he’s bound to find sympathies and complexities that may require concentration, but which repay major dividends.
Rattigan wrote about a restricted world, socially and emotionally, and his crux – that repression of emotions is the English vice – must have seemed dated in the play’s own era, the early 1970s. But its continuing truth has long emerged from under fashionable waves, and the complexities of living with that repression (only financially successful American author Mark is free of it) are played through here with remarkable integrity, if sometimes at something of a slow pace for modern audiences.
Whatever the play’s shortcomings, they’re worth putting up with, especially in an immaculate production like Philip Wilson’s. Every move, interaction, vocal tone and inflection is unassertively right. And there are 4 exemplary performances. Nathan Osgood has a friendly, slightly flummoxed approach to his English friends. Philip Cumbus gives the first-time TV playwright son Joey a youthful directness in the awkward relationship with his father.
As the dad who reviews everyone’s books but forgets his son’s TV premiere, Michael Thomas mixes self-absorption with the weight of knowing about his wife’s illness. And Suzanne Burden’s truly outstanding, catching Lydia’s every emotional nuance from her turbulent history and position as family lynchpin, up to a conclusion where Johanna Town’s lighting rightly bathes her in a bright golden glow. Lacking star names, this probably won’t be seen elsewhere. But it remains one of the finest nights in Chichester’s history.
Lydia Cruttwell: Suzanne Burden
Sebastian Cruttwell: Michael Thomas
Mark Walters: Nathan Osgood
Joey Cruttwell: Philip Cumbus
Director: Philip Wilson
Designer: Matthew Wright
Lighting: Johanna Town
Sound: Lee Stevens
Composer: Matthew Scott
2006-07-02 13:11:57