PLAGUE OVER ENGLAND.
London.
PLAGUE OVER ENGLAND
by Nicholas de Jongh.
Duchess Theatre.
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Wed & Sat 3pm.
Runs 2hr 20min One interval.
TICKETS: 0844 412 4659.
www.nimaxtheatres.com/plague (booking fee by ‘phone & online).
Review: Timothy Ramsden 24 February.
Clear theme, but strangely illiberal outside its sphere of sympathy.
Premiered last year at the Finborough Theatre, Nicholas de Jongh’s play about Anglo-Saxon attitudes to homosexuality in the early fifties provides fascinating material around the 1953 appearance of lead actor Sir John Gielgud in court for importuning in a Chelsea public toilet.
Its depiction of various gay relationships is limited as every short scene - virtually every sentence – clinging to the theme, giving characters no space to acquire any complexity; even Celia Imrie’s Sybil Thorndike, a sympathetic fellow-professional in a suddenly hostile world.
And there’s a didactic simplicity of character. Official homophobes, such as Home Secretary David Maxwell Fyfe, or judge Percival Lightbourne, are unsympathetic caricatures. One unsympathetic homophobe is realistic enough; two (let alone three etc.) ironically looks like dramatic bigotry.
Yet the play depicts, without explaining, the early 1950s’ suddenly sharpened crackdown on homosexuality and harrying of individuals. Designer Alex Marker’s semi-circle of wood-panelling evokes this society’s closeted mentality, while David Burt’s series of cameos, including several evidently gay characters, shows homosexuality in a lower social class discreetly existing around the denouncers.
Gielgud (Michael Feast, sacrificing some of his actor’s intensity to catching Gielgud’s voice and manner), most innocent of people, is a suitable case for de Jongh’s treatment. One strong moment echoes an early scene showing him rehearsing the traditional play he was directing and performing in at the time. On the opening night Gielgud freezes offstage, fearful of the audience’s reaction to him.
Less successful is the moment the Home Secretary and a covertly gay civil servant discuss their campaign as, in a device stylistically at odds with the rest of the action, a near-naked gay couple from a parallel scene openly have sex on the ministerial desk.
A year later, as the play doesn’t say, the Wolfenden committee began the long path to legal reform in a less low, dishonest decade. De Jongh’s final scenes, from the seventies (including a visual reference to the 1970 premiere of David Storey’s Home, which starred Gielgud and Ralph Richardson), provide some sort of happy end, with the actor successful when his antagonists were firmly nestling in history’s voluminous dustbin.
Gregory: Sam Heughan.
Lord Chief Justice Rayner Goddard/Dr Ambrose Quentin: Hugh Ross.
Detective Chief Inspector Stephen Bellinger/Peter Arlington: Steve Hansell.
Mr Justice Percival Lightbourne/Binkie Beaumont: Simon Dutton.
Matthew Barnsbury: Michael Brown.
Sybil Thorndike/Vera Dromgoole: Celia Imrie.
John Gielgud: Michael Feast.
Douglas Witherby/Brian Mandyville/Bert/Fred: David Burt.
PC Terry Fordham: Leon Ockenden.
Chiltern Moncrieffe/David Maxwell Fyfe: John Warnaby.
Director: Tamara Harvey.
Designer: Alex Marker.
Lighting: James Farncombe.
Sound: Theo Holloway.
Music: Alexander S Bermange.
Costume: Trish Wilkinson.
2009-02-26 22:36:01