TEA AND SYMPATHY. To 25 November.
London
TEA AND SYMPATHY
by Robert Anderson
Finborough Theatre 118 Finborough Road SW10 9ED In rep to 25 November 2006
15-17; 19, 21, 23 25 Nov 8pm Mat 18 Nov 3pm
Runs 2hr 5min One interval
TICKETS: 0870 4000 838 (24hr no booking fee)
www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 12 November
A revival that works best in the play’s central relationship.
Tea (of which little is drunk) and sympathy (of which much is offered and some accepted) are provided by New England boarding-school guidance-mentor’s wife Laura Reynolds to Tom Lee, a student whose life is made miserable in Robert Anderson’s 1953 play by the sneers and rejection of fellow-boarders and the callous incomprehension of Reynolds and his old friend, Tom’s father.
Tom’s willingness to take female roles in school plays and his gentle manner in a world of outdoor expeditions and sports-playing is coding for homosexuality. It’s something alleged by the boys who threaten him and coerce any student who won’t join their isolation of Tom. And by the older men, one of whose motives is brought under suspicion by Laura.
Tom’s plight is expressed through women; his desperation to assert his normality sends him to the fearsome-sounding local semi-whore, while Laura searches for an emotional connection with him. She has her own background grief: a first husband whose troubles have prepared her for emotionally-injured men, and an unhappy marriage to her older second husband.
Laura Main gives her part-namesake an expressive elegance, suggesting the composed picture she presents covers a deeply-felt concern. This makes the sympathy she offers far more than passing politeness. James Joyce’s Tom clearly shows a weary desire to curl up alone and ignore existence, plus irritation when he feels his isolation invaded by foe or friend, without any stereotyped sexuality.
The other students have a suitable callousness, but the older men are too one-dimensionally unsympathetic. Partly this is in the writing. It seems Anderson, too, can’t let characters say more than a very few lines before they hurtle into issue-related talk.
It’s a characteristic emphasised by Adam Penford’s economical staging, with its suggested corridors and walls where things are overheard or characters try to avoid or meet each other. Perhaps a more opulent staging could help the action find space to breathe between these hectic conversations.
As it is, Penford ensures the play’s heart beats at the sight of Tom’s repeated rejections and in the earnest efforts Laura makes to rescue him from his downward spiral.
Laura Reynolds: Laura Main
Lilly Sears: Joanna Croll
Tom Lee: James Joyce
David Harris: Richard Crawley
Ralph: James Bye
Al: Christopher Fletcher
Steve: Robin Chalk
Bill Reynolds: Andrew Cuthbert
Herbert Lee: Andrew Macbean
Director: Adam Penford
Designer: Simon Kenny
Lighting: Alex Stone
Sound: Giles Sutton
2006-11-14 02:21:20