THE VERTICAL HOUR. To 1 March.

London

THE VERTICAL HOUR
by David Hare.

Royal Court (Jerwood Theatre Downstairs) To 1 March 2008.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Thu & Sat 3.30pm.
Audio-described 23 Feb 3.30pm.
BSL Signed 19 Feb.
Captioned 25 Feb.
Post-show talk 7 Feb
Runs 2hr 35min One interval.

TICKETS: 020 7565 5000.
www.royalcourttheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 29 January.

Ideas outstrip characters.
It’s the time immediately after a crisis: the vertical hour when remedial action is most likely to be effective. Yale Politics lecturer Naduia defines it to her partner’s father, English doctor Oliver.

David Hare’s script starts by wrongfooting us about her own views, while her advice to a couple of students frames the messier main business of her arguments with Oliver. Personal histories and agendas stir in the mix. Nadia’s students – one certainly, one possibly – confuse their emotional lives with their studies, while challenging her own certainties. And these clash in elegantly-argued discussions between each pairing of the play’s central trio: she, Oliver and their fulcrum Philip.

The Vertical Hour is less expansive and more penetrating than the Royal Court’s recent big-author megabore, Tom Stoppard’s absurdly overpraised Rock ‘n’ Roll. But it comes unstuck. Not through the arguments – though it’s surprising to hear anti-war Oliver argue about Iraq without Weapons of Mass Destruction being mentioned.

But the fascinating segments of the play’s dialectic lose overall shape as the characters are not interesting enough in themselves. And Hare doesn’t go down Bernard Shaw’s route of keeping attention by a clowning element. These people were made to order, and to argue. The main opponents are, if anything, too well played by a suavely alert Indira Varma and Anton Lesser, who gives Oliver’s seemingly comfortable Shropshire isolation an unpredictable, dangerous edge.

“Too well” because Varma’s assertiveness and Lesser’s continual restlessness shine bright lights revealing these characters as the writer’s vehicles for his debate. Jeremy Herrin’s production takes the sensible line of minimalist elegance to focus on the ideas, though that helps allow the contrivance to show through. The bare colours of Mike Britton’s sparely elegant (that word again) set and the creation of night, dawn and day in Howard Harrison’s – yes, elegantly stylish – lighting give a spare aesthetic beauty to the production.

There’s a lot to listen to, and take note of, along the way. But the ending shows up the play’s human limitations. Nadia declares she’s leaving academe to return to journalism in Iraq. Making one more embedded hack; that’s a climax?

Dennis: Joseph Kloska.
Oliver: Anton Lesser.
Terri: Wunmi Mosaku.
Philip: Tom Riley.
Nadia: Indira Varma.

Director: Jeremy Herrin.
Designer: Mike Britton.
Lighting: Howard Harrison.
Sound/Music: Nick Powell.
Dialect coach: Penny Dyer.
Assistant director: Lyndsey Turner.

2008-01-31 09:33:17