WASTE. To 15 November.

London.

WASTE
by Harley Granville Barker.

Almeida Theatre Almeida Street N1 1TA To 15 November 2008.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm, Mat Sat 3pm.
Runs 3hr One interval.

TICKETS 020 7359 4404 (24 hours).
www.almeida.co.uk
Review: Carole Woddis 3 October.

Rare revival compromised by the kind of problems its author would never have countenanced.
Harley Granville Barker’s Waste, written in 1907 but banned for thirty years, is unquestionably a play for today. Backstairs abortion, a woman’s right to choose and the tensions between what politicians say in public and do in private makes for a heady mix.

But it wasn’t Barker’s astute portrait of the British political establishment’s cynical manouevrings to which the now defunct Lord Chamberlain objected; it was the mention of abortion. Even though the character in question, married woman, Amy O’Connell (Nancy Carroll) is made to suffer, and dies.

So too Henry Trebell, the up-and-coming young politician who embarks on an affair with her out of almost cruelly heartless reasons, ends up rejected by a Prime Minister devoted to him and commits suicide. What a strange morality to see such outcomes as reasons for censorship.

These days, we pretend we’re more relaxed about abortion, if not the sexual or financial indiscretions of politicians which have both become the new feeding grounds for media outrage. Waste shows us profligacy in both personal and public terms and does so with a sophistication few dramatists today could muster. Unfortunately, that is not always clear in Sam West’s star cast, handsomely designed but often frustratingly too naturalistic production.

Barker, actor, director, theatre visionary as well as playwright, wrote with aphoristic elegance. His arguments are as tight and taut as a rubber band. Waste’s impact therefore turns partly upon making us understand Trebell’s supposed idealistic genius in guiding through a Bill about the Disestablishment of the Church of England and partly sympathy for him in his downfall. West’s direction however lets slip far too many lines particularly from Keen, normally an actor of enormous depth, who himself turns introverted to the point of inaudability. The result, from this viewer at least, became indifference.

It is left to the wonderful Phoebe Nicholls as Frances, Trebell’s equally emotionally hand-cuffed sister and an engrossing scene of philosophical, real-politik horse-trading between Patrick Drury’s aggrieved Irish husband, Justin O’Connell, Hugh Ross’s PM, Cyril Horsham and various parliamentary colleagues, to remind us of the play’s potential, but here wasted, talent.

Walter Kent: Max Bennett.
Countess Mortimer: Helen Lindsay.
Lady Julia Farrant: Jessica Turner.
Frances Trebell: Phoebe Nicholls.
Lucy Davenport: Jeany Spark.
Amy O’Connell: Nancy Carroll.
George Farrant: Michael Thomas.
Russell Blackborough: Richard Cordery.
Butler: Giles Taylor.
Henry Trebell: Will Keen.
Gilbert Wedgecroft: Bruce Alexander.
Lord Charles Cantilupe: Peter Eyre.
Cyril Horsham: Hugh Ross.
Vivian Saumarez: Giles Taylor.
Justin O’Connell: Patrick Drury.
Bertha: Helen Lindsay.

Director: Samuel West.
Designer: Peter McKintosh.
Lighting: Guy Hoare.
Sound: John Leonard.
Movement: Jane Gibson.
Assistant director: Henry Bell.

2008-10-05 16:52:10