THE VORTEX. To 15 February.

London

THE VORTEX
by Noel Coward

Donmar Warehouse To 15 February 2003
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Thu & Sat 2.30pm
Audio described 25 January 2.30pm
BSL signed 16 January 7.30pm
Captioned 21 January
Runs 2hr Two intervals

TICKETS 020 7369 1732
Review Timothy Ramsden 16 December

A stylish production and well-played supporting roles surround a central relationship lacking in subtlety.Sex, drugs and the charleston: though the dancing's more sedate at Florence Lancaster's country house; a world which Christopher Oram makes all bold design and huge statement paintings and window panels worthy a cathedral. Florence and her grown son Nicky, home from France, gradually step out of the busy society milieu Michael Grandage's production creates in the first act. With appointments and poses they shine: as the action proceeds, deep down in their private lives they flounder.

Till eventually mother and son she divested of her latest lover Tom (her bid to deny the cracked-skin onset of age), he losing his fiancee Bunty (ironically leaving for her childhood friend, the same Tom Veryan) slug it out in the brief, savage final act.

Surprisingly, the comparison's with Ibsen's Ghosts, where, also, a son returns to his mother, facing a slow-fused destruction from his moral inheritance. Yet, though his father, like Osvald Alving's, might have a part in Nicky's fate, Michael Hadley's genially complacent David shows genuine affection for his son.

Yet, what chance could a reasonable man with a desirable bank balance have, except to follow David's path into the background, when faced with Francesca Annis's Florence, her energy and swooping confidence almost betraying the high-wire nerve act she's playing? When mother and son sit and talk in act one, Nicky's words go unheard among Florence's self-obsessed chat.

This may be why he has to shout, but Chiwetel Ejiofor's roaring performance tends to blank out the character's pain. A chap can grow angst-ridden in his mother's bedroom, as Hamlet discovered, but to belt out his agonies as if proclaiming late extra news to the street is a clear case of more is less.

It's his mother's destructive influence, rather than the shock of his incipient drug addiction suggested well in earlier moments of irritation and clumsy footwork which lies at the play's bitter heart. And it needs more variety and subtlety of treatment than Grandage here provides - until the final moment, as mother and son curl into each other in a silence louder than the preceding verbal torrent.

Preston: Toni Kanal
Helen Saville: Deborah Findlay
Pauncefort Quentin: Bette Bourne
Clara Hibbert: Nina Sosanya
Florence Lancaster: Francesca Annis
Tom Veryan: Mark Umbers
Nicky Lancaster: Chiwetel Ejiofor
David Lancaster: Michael Hadley
Bunty Mainwaring: Indira Varma
Bruce Fairlight: Daniel Weyman

Director: Michael Grandage
Designer: Christopher Oram
Lighting: Howard Harrison
Sound: Fergus O' Hare for Aura

2002-12-17 01:13:24