THE FAMILY REUNION. To 10 January.
London.
THE FAMILY REUNION
by T S Eliot.
Donmar Warehouse To 10 January 2009.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Thu, Sat & 24 Dec 2.30pm.
no performance 25-26 Dec, 24 Dec (eve), 1 Jan (mat).
Audio-described 13 Dec 2.30pm (+ Touch Tour 1.30pm).
BSL Signed 8 Jan.
Captioned 16 Dec.
Runs 2hr 40min One interval.
TICKETS: 0870 060 6624 (no booking fee).
www.donmarwarehouse.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 29 November.
Sin and expiation in an oak-panelled room.
A clock ticks as an old woman makes her way into the high, oak-walled room. Various tickings sound symphonically as she’s joined by other members of the Monchensey family. Mostly old, these living dead assemble as the estate awaits the return of its rightful owner, Harry.
Gloomy as the dark of Bunny Christie’s set, there’s barrenness and bitterness around a choric quartet of relations, the clubbable English buffer (William Gaunt superb from the moment he complains about the young smoking and remembers his own cigarette mid-sentence), conventional officer of the Empire army (Paul Shelley, slow-witted in a powerful physique). And the women, Anna Cartaret’s bitter Violet at war with the world in her pinched expression and Una Stubbs’ more jolly if puzzled Ivy.
These are the dead of Wishwood House, opposed only by Agatha and young Mary. They share Harry’s (Samuel West, anguished and driven from the start) visions of these Furies, and wish to see him escape his guilt, showing love instead of clinging need or incomprehension as he arrives home after a long absence.
T S Eliot based this play of guilt and atonement on Aeschylus’ Eumenides, conclusion of the Oresteia trilogy. Harry is an Orestes pursued by a murder that had its root in others’ crimes. At the play’s heart are Harry’s two long dialogues, with Mary then Agatha.
Director Jeremy Herrin can’t quite make these stretches as clear as the social comedy, suspense and occasional theatrical shocks elsewhere. Words are more clotted and less demotic than in most plays; this is aristocratic England with its various levels of condescension to Kevin McMonagle as Harry’s Pylades-like chauffeur, Christopher Benjamin’s bluff family doctor and Phil Cole’s plodding local sergeant – a cameo straight from mid-century theatre.
The angelic children, with their tired eyes, who calmly follow Harry with their butterfly-nets, don’t quite suggest what are surely, in Aeschylean terms, still Erinyes (Furies) rather than the “kindly Ones” Eumenides they’re called. But Family Reunions are infrequent these days, and Eliot’s grappling with guilt, played by this galaxy of fine actors in a considered production, make it more than merely worthwhile.
Amy: Gemma Jones.
Agatha: Penelope Wilton.
Ivy: Una Stubbs.
Violet: Anna Cartaret.
Charles Piper: William Gaunt.
Gerald Piper: Paul Shelley.
Mary: Hattie Morahan.
Harry: Samuel West.
Denman: Ann Marcuson.
Downing: Kevin McMonagle.
Dr Warburton: Christopher Benjamin.
Winchell: Phil Cole.
Eumenides: Charlie Coopersmith, Ben Galvin, Elliot Horne, Thomas Huttlestone, Joss Littler, Harry Scott.
Director: Jeremy Herrin.
Designer: Bunny Christie.
Lighting: Rick Fisher.
Sound/Composer: Nick Powell.
Dialect coach: Penny Dyer.
Assistant director: Abbey Wright.
2008-11-30 10:40:26