National Theatre, Lyttelton
1st May, 2018, matinee
“Naked and afraid in the face of her
nothingness”
Nicholas Dromgoole wrote a
brilliant introduction for Rodney Ackland’s play in the text published to
celebrate the National Theatre’s production in 1995. There, he charts the
play’s difficult history from being booed off the stage and called an insult to
the British (under the title of The Pink
Room) in 1952, to the status of rediscovered masterpiece in 1988. In this
introduction, he quotes Kenneth Tynan’s maxims of a typical West End play in
the 1950s:
At no point may the plot or
characters make more than superficial contact with reality. Characters earning
less than 1000 a year should be restricted to small parts or exaggerated into
types so patently farcical that no member of the audience could possibly
identify with such esurience. Rhythm in dialogue is achieved by means of either
vocatives… or qualifying clauses… and irony is confined to having an irate male
character shout “I am perfectly calm!”
I had this
in mind when, a week later, I saw Agatha Christie’s Love from a Stranger (touring the UK): cheap epigrams, laboured
plots, and mostly middle class characters. There was one point when a character
asked the stranger in the play ‘Who are your people?’ and I suddenly thought I
was watching a prototype of Pinter’s The
Birthday Party. Other than that, as Dromgoole suggests, this 1930s play was
mostly there to titillate, amuse and entertain. This is why I think that
Ackland’s play is an under-appreciated 20th century classic. A
private Soho club over the summer of 1945, frequented by fops, flops and
philanderers, is the depiction of Blighty that Ackland gives us. It’s reigned
over by Kate Fleetwood’s Christine, a Madame Ranevskaya of the West End, fuelled
by the drink, customers and false bonhomie that her club, La Vie en Rose,
trades in.
I have been
wondering why Rufus Norris has programmed this revival when it was last staged
at the NT in 1995 with Judi Dench as Christine. Why not find some other ‘lost’
play? Then again, why not stage it? The National is one of few producing houses
that can facilitate such a large cast. The play’s portrayal of homosexuality
and interest in complicated feelings and issues invites comparisons to
Rattigan, Chekhov and O’Casey, next to which Ackland is still a less familiar
name. I was thrilled that a new generation (myself included) could get an
opportunity to see the play and experience a plethora of luscious characters that
are frightened of their selves as much as they are of the war. It’s a shame,
then, that Joe Hill-Gibbins’ production is rather unfocused and has left me
with the impression that the play is not as good as I initially thought.
As conservative as this sounds, I think
the problem starts with Lizzie Clachan’s set design. By and large, it does
evoke the pink tinge of the Le Vie en Rose: classic furniture, large mirrors,
frilly lampshades, wood panelling. Along with it being handsomely lit by Jon
Clark, it suggests a sense of grandeur now faded and grubby; one bright lamp
and a stain will be on show and the game given away. This is all great. But
Hill-Gibbins and Clachan open up the design to show the backdrop of this era.
In the script, from what I remember, we occasionally see the silhouette of a
prostitute walking by the window or hear the tapping of typists in the Labour
offices across the road. Here, we have to watch Rachel Dale’s Fifi lapping the
set to walk across the front of the stage every five minutes like Grizabella,
and a couple of typists stuck at desks at the back of the stage; how do they
keep themselves busy for three hours? There’s something else bugging me. I
think every show I’ve seen in the Lyttelton since Norris took over has had a
set which partly reveals the back and side walls of the stage. I guess that
this decision to achieve a stripped back aesthetic comes from a desire to not
be so fastidious in creating the sorts of places that are usually put on the
Lyttleton stage, whether they’re drawing rooms or country houses or bars. But
here, whatever the intended effect of the uneven floors and large space at the
back of the stage, the club and its characters became dislocated and therefore
I sometimes questioned whether I believed them.
Thankfully, the cast relish these characters,
hugely investing in them vitality, passion, hope and fear. To name but a few,
Danny Webb brings out the precision of Siegfried as well as a fondness for Elizabeth
Collier, stylishly played by Sinéad Matthews, a blonde bombshell lost in the
era and later grief-struck; Jenny Galloway has a lot of fun with the bewigged,
lisping literary critic R B Monody; Jonathan Slinger believably conveys the
abject nastiness of producer Maurice Hussey. It’s rare to see a large cast of
characters each with their own potential for detail and depth. Charles Edwards is
perfect as the desperate writer Hugh Marriner. I’m not sure if it’s how Ackland
has written his lines or Edwards’ compelling performance, but he seems less a
character in a play and more completely lost in the character. One instance of
spontaneity came when Webb hadn’t quite successfully lit Edwards’ cigarette and
the following momentary exchange spoke volumes for Edwards’ performance. But of
all these performative characters Kate Fleetwood shines above. Red dress, dark
eyes, big hair, and an enormous amount of war paint, her Christine reaches the
highest of highs followed by great lows. The cast and Hill-Gibbons do credit to
this ensemble of characters.
As the ceiling tiles begin to fall
and most of the characters have been undone, I started to wonder how formally
old-fashioned, if very well-crafted, the play is. But for all that, I’ve a huge
fondness for it, not least for Ackland’s belief in his characters and for the
amount of poetry he’s got out of drinking. There are lines such as “When you’re
in a crowd of people and all drinking and shouting and nobody listening all at
once, you’re as it were drowned in a wave of love and understanding, and for a split
second you find your true identity”. But where the air should feel thick with
intoxication, it feels somewhat dissipated.
Absolute
Hell is playing at the National Theatre until 16th
June 2018.
 |
| Kate Fleetwood in Absolute Hell. Credit: Johan Persson |
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