PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE – REVIEW OF 2016 AIX-EN-PROVENCE FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

James Karas

Conductor                   Esa-Pekka Salonen

Director                      Katie Mitchell

Set Designer               Lizzie Clachan

Costumes Designer    Chloé Lamford

Lighting                      James Farncombe

Dramaturge                 Martin Crimp

Pelléas                        Stéphane Dégout

Mélisande                   Barbara Hannigan

Golaud                        Laurent Naouri

Arkel                           Franz Josef Selig

Geneviève                   Sylvie Brunet-Grupposo

Yniold                         Chloé Briot

Doctor                         Thomas Dear

Choir                           Cape Town Opera Chorus

Orchestra                     Philharmonia Orchestra

At the Grand Théâtre de Provence from July 2 to July 16, 2016

***** (out of 5) 

           

Claude Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande is a complex opera replete with symbolism, impressionistic music and a mythical world that is somewhat unfamiliar. Director Kate Mitchell has taken all of that and turned it inside out (perhaps more precisely, given us a cross-section view) in a production that is riveting, stimulating and quite confusing.

Mitchell has taken King Arkel (Franz Josef Selig) and the Kingdom of Allemonde with its forest, castle, dark cave, fountain, and tower and transferred them to the modern house of a wealthy gentleman. In the opening scene we see a bride in a well-appointed room with a large bed. She steps out into a hall, a curtain closes the room from our view temporarily, some branches are attached to the bed and the story begins with the beautiful and mysterious Mélisande (Barbara Hannigan) meeting Golaud (Laurent Naouri), the grandson of the king “in the forest.”

Opening scene with Barbara Hannigan as the bride Melisande. Phot: Patrick Berger/Artcomart

We soon realize that there are two Mélisandes. One is the soprano singing the role and there is a duplicate that appears quite frequently. Does Mélisande have a split personality? Is one of them the truthful Mélisande and the other the mendacious one? Is she torn between love for her husband Golaud and love for her Pelléas (Stephane Dégout)? How many other possible explanations are there? More on this later.

The story of the opera is quite simple in bare outline. Golaud and Mélisande meet and marry. She meets Goloud’s brother Pelléas and falls in love with him. Their love is discovered and the inevitable conclusion follows. Well, not quite as far as Debussy and librettist Maurice Maeterlinck are concerned. And things get considerably more complex when Mitchell takes over. 

Golaud, Pelléas, their mother Geneviève (Sylvie Brunet-Grupposo) and Arkel appear in scenes where they are not expected or included in the libretto. When Pelléas and Mélisande go into the dark cave, Mélisande sees three poor people asleep and becomes frightened. The three people in Mitchell’s interpretation are Arkel, Genevieve and Goloud’s son by a previous wife, Yniold (Chloe Briot). Is this her guilty conscience making her see things?

The two Melisandes and Golaud in the death scene. 

There are dozens of fascinating instances like this but I will describe only the death scene. Pelléas and Mélisande go the fountain (in this case a cross section of an empty swimming pool). She undresses to her bra and panties and he wears only underwear. They express their love and as he sits on the floor she puts her legs over him. They are making love and on the point of orgasm, Golaud appears and slashes Pelléas' throat and injures Mélisande.

In the next scene Mélisande is on her deathbed but not from the injury from Golaud. As Mélisande is lying in bed Golaud appears and the “other” Mélisande jumps in his arms. In the meantime, Pelléas or I suppose his ghost appears. The “death” is moving but long with one Mélisande being bathed in light as if she were being transfigured while the other Mélisande is dying in bed. The former one leaves the room and we assume that the latter has died. Wrong. She sits up.

Most of the singing is done by Pelléas, Mélisande and Golaud with meritorious contribution by Arkel and lesser quantity by Genevieve and Yniold. Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan takes on the tough role of Mélisande with fearless conviction. She needs a supple and beautiful voice and be mysterious, passionate, mendacious and secretive. A stupendous performance.

Baritone Stéphane Dégout sang an excellent Pelléas, a man confused and confusing like the rest of the characters. The jealous husband Golaud is handled by bass-baritone Laurent Naouri who must show anger and some innocence when he sees childish play instead of the reality of what is happening between his wife and his brother.

Bass Franz-Joseph Selig with his rumbling and well-controlled low notes does an unfailingly good job as Arkel.         

The sets by Lizzie Clachan have the entire action take place in room-size spaces on the stage. They show great versatility in having quick changes made to the basic set by having a curtain pulled over and then back.

The Philharmonia Orchestra was conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen.

With superb performances by the orchestra and the singers, this was Katie Mitchell’s show - imaginative, brilliant, stupendous and confusing. One should see it several times to begin absorbing its wealth of symbolic, psychological and theatrical depth.

KALÎLA WA DIMNA - REVIEW OF 2016 AIX-EN-PROVENCE FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

James Karas

KALÎLA WA DIMNA

By Maneim Adwan (muisc) and Fady Jomar and Catherine Verlaguet (libretto)
Theâtre de Jeu de Paume, Aix-en-Provence

                                                July 1 to July 17, 2016

Conductor                               Zied Zouari

Director                                  Olivier Letellier

Set Designers                          Eric Charbeau et Philippe Casaban

Costumes                                Nathalie Prats

Kalîla                                      Ranine Chaar

Dimna                                     Moneim Adwan

The King                                 Mohamed Jebali

The Queen Mother                 Reem Talhami

Chatraba                                 Jean Chahid

Violin                                      Zied Zouari

Cello                                       Yassir Bousselam

Clarinet                                   Selahattin Kabaci

Qanun                                     Abdulsamet Çelikel

Percussion                              Wassim Halal

***** (out of 5)

Kalîla wa Dimna is an opera in French and Arabic by Moneim Adwan that was commissioned by the Aix-en-Provence Festival and received its world premiere on July1 2016. Now count how many “firsts” there are in the last sentence.

The “firsts” are irrelevant, of course, and what counts is that this is a delightful opera that tells a compelling story, has wonderful music and receives a splendid production in the tiny Jeu de Paume theatre in Aix directed expertly by Olivier Letellier.

 Kalîla wa Dimna (2016 © Patrick Berger / Artcomart)

The story or series of stories have their roots in India some twenty-four hundred years ago. Fady Jomar and Catherine Verlaguet have based their libretto on an 8^th century translation of the stories by the Persian Ibn al-Muqaffa.

In a mythical kingdom, Dimna becomes a counselor of the king and attempts to use the relationship for personal gain. His sister Kalîla senses the dangers of his actions and tries to dissuade him but to no avail.

But there is trouble in the kingdom in the guise of a poet called Chatraba who is very popular with the people and sings to them about their sufferings and injustice. Dimna brings Chatraba to the king and a friendship develops between the two men. Dimna is determined to bring an end to it.

Kalîla and the King’s mother try to warn Chatraba about Dimna’s machinations by telling him the fable of the wolf, the crow, the jackal and the camel.  Dimna lies to the king about Chatraba and in the end the poet is put to death. The King finally opens his eyes and there is a promise of justice. The opera ends as it began with a beautiful song of freedom.

This story is told in Arabic with the beautiful narrative power of Kalîla (Ranine Chaar) and the five characters sing a variety of songs in Arabic. Many of the songs have the flavour of ballads accompanied by the beautiful melodies played by the five musicians. We hear the mellow sound of the clarinet especially in its lower range, the deep sound of the cello, and the rich chords of the violin. There is also a quanun, a stringed instrument related to the zither that produces a wealth of splendid music. 

Kalîla wa Dimna (2016 © Patrick Berger / Artcomart)

Understandably, all the songs and music have an Arabic flavour that is melodic, expressive and splendid. There are long arching phrases, plaintive sounds and angry expressions that the singers, especially Chaar, handle with ease. There is protest – if you kill a poet, he will come back a thousand times – and a push towards justice. If Dimna is guilty of something, he should be arrested and tried rather than summarily executed like Chatraba.

All the characters are dressed in modern clothes. The Queen Mother and Kalîla wear long dresses but the costumes do not suggest anything exotic. The set consists of white stands that are simple and functional.

The production lasts an hour and a half and it is the most delightful ninety minutes to be had almost anywhere.

COSI FAN TUTTE - REVIEW OF 2016 AIX-EN-PROVENCE FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

James Karas

Conductor                   Louis Langrée

Director                      Christophe Honoré

Set Designer               Alban Ho Van

Costumes                    Thibault Vancraenenbroeck

Lighting                      Dominique Bruguière

Fiordiligi                    Lenneke Ruiten         

Dorabella                    Kate Lindsey

Despina                       Sandrine Piau

Ferrando                     Joel Prieto                  

Guglielmo                   Nahuel di Pierro        

Don Alfonso               Rod Gilfry                 

Chrous                        Cape Town Opera Chorus

Orchestra                    Freiburger Barockorchester

*** (out of 5)

The performance finished at about 1:10 in the morning and at 3 hours and 40 minutes that is approaching Wagnerian duration. The singers, the chorus, the conductor and the orchestra all received enthusiastic ovations. The director and the creative team walked on the stage and were greeted with resounding and extended boos.

We were watching Mozart’s delightful Cosi Fan Tutte, the opening production of the 68^th edition of the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in that beautiful medieval city.

Opera directors in general and European ones in particular have for some years now been pushing the envelope as it were in producing classic works in most unlikely versions. Wagner’s Ring in a gas station, Rigoletto in Las Vegas, Zaide in a third-world sweatshop, The Abduction from the Seraglio set among the jihadists and ISIS are just a few examples that come to mind.   

A scene from Cosi fan Tutte?

As the curtain opens we are ready for a new production of Cosi directed by Christophe Honoré, known better as a writer and film director and fairly new to opera. But instead of hearing the lilting and uplifting overture played by the Freiburger Barockorchester under Louis Langre we listen to some strange song played on an old turntable. There is a rundown building and a fire burning in a cutoff barrel. We see a couple of white men milling around and abusing  a couple of black women. Abusing consists of manhandling, grabbing and in one instance pulling the woman to the side and …well, was she just sitting on his lap or was she being quietly raped?

The setting is a colonial village somewhere in Africa. The soldiers wear fezes but the natives are black so you can decide where we are. The only way to treat the natives, especially the women, is by pushing, grabbing them by the hair, shoving them to the side or hitting them. None of the colonial overlords need mistake them for people. Without putting too fine of a point on it, the locale is a slum.

Oh yes, Mozart’s opera. To jog your memory, Ferrando and Guglielmo who are not black, live in that village and are madly in love with the sisters Dorabella and Fiordiligi and swear that their loves could never be unfaithful to them. Their older and wiser friend Don Alphonso is willing to bet that, yes, they can and will be unfaithful because cosi fan tutte, all women are like that.

Dorabella and Fiordiligi at home?

The ruse is to send the men off to war and have two Albanians (Guglielmo and Ferrando in disguise) visit and successfully court the ladies. Don Alphonso is assisted in his plot by the clever and lovable servant Dorabella.

Back to the slum, please. The question is: what is the relationship between Mozart’s music, Lorenzo da Ponte’s libretto, the social stratum in which the story takes place and a slum in colonial Africa? Can the two be made to coexist? Can you superimpose a foreign culture of cruelty, abuse, inhuman treatment of natives on an opera that deals with love, humour and some silly game-playing by people who have not much else to do?

If Honoré wanted to draw attention to himself, he has certainly succeeded. Many reviews may be similar to mine and talk mostly about him. Did I mention the wonderful singing? Soprano Lenneke Ruiten as Fiordiligi and mezzo soprano Kate Lindsey as Dorabella are lithe young singers with supple voices and physical agility. They would have delighted us if only they had not moved to the slums and adopted the dress code and some of the manners of that world. They have servants including the white Despina of Sandrine Piau who usually enchants us. Again her singing and acting are superb but what is she doing in that milieu?

Guglielmo and Ferrando are transformed into unrecognizable Albanians by making the black. Bass di Pierro as Guglielmo and tenor Prieto as Ferrando were youthfully arrogant and emotional as becomes lovers and vocally expressive as Mozartian singers should be. Don’t worry about the black make-up. Gilfry as Don Alfonso missed a couple of beats but he straightened out and joined the crowd in bad manners but good singing.  

Conductor Louis Langrée and the Freiburger Barockorchester stuck with Mozart and they were a delight to hear.

__________

Cosi Fan Tutte continues at the Théâtre de l'Archevêché until July 19, 2016 in Aix-en-Provence, France.  http://festival-aix.com/

AIDA - REVIEW OF GOLD AND IRONY PRODUCTION BY PARIS OPERA

James Karas

Aida

By Giuseppe Verdi (music) and Antonio Ghislanzoni (libretto)

The King                      Orlin Anastassov

Amneris                       Anita Rachvelishvili

Aida                             Sondra Radvanovsky 

Radames                     Aleksandrs Antonenko 

Ramfis                         Kwangchul Youn

Amonasro                    George Gagnidze 

Messenger                  Yu Shao

Sacerdotessa              Andrea Soare

Conductor                   Daniel Oren

Director                       Olivier Py

Set design                   Pierre-André Weitz

Costume design          Pierre-André Weitz

Lighting design            Bertrand Killy

Chorus master José Luis Basso

Continues until July 16, 2016 at the Opéra Bastille, Paris.

***** (out of five)

Olivier Py has directed an unorthodox and jaw-dropping Aida for the Paris Opera at the Bastille that combines outstanding singing and stupendous directing. The modern-dress production starts with flag-waving and a concentration on burnished gold and ends in debunking war and its “glory”.

Let’s start with the renowned Triumphal March. The Egyptian army under Radames has defeated the Ethiopians and the victors are returning with glory, spoils and prisoners. The orchestra led by the trumpets plays the stirring march as the victorious Egyptians parade triumphantly in front of cheering crowds. Elephants, horses and practically whole zoos have marched across the stage in a show of splendour, glory and, one must add, unlimited opera company budgets.

 Amneris looks on as Radames and Aida near their death in front of the corpses.

Py gives us nothing. He takes a vehemently anti-heroic and ironic view. As the trumpets are blaring the stirring music, we see a small triumphal arch with a half-naked torso on top waving a machine gun. Some cleaning ladies are cleaning the gold arch with mops. No victorious soldiers, no defeated prisoners, no spoils of war, no animals, nothing. A ballerina dressed in white does some dancing.

As the orchestra continues to play the march, the stage floor is raised and a subfloor appears. It is full of corpses, and soldiers wearing masks are tossing more dead bodies on the pile. This is the Egyptian triumph.

At the end of the triumphal rituals, Amneris is supposed to put a crown on Radames’s head. She does not. As the celebration continues, Egyptian soldiers using the butt of their machine guns rough up the Ethiopian prisoners and one of them is in fact knocked down and kicked. We see a picture of a bombed city projected on the rear of the stage several times during the performance. This is the result of the Egyptian victory.

Py and Set and Costume Designer Pierre-André Weitz use gold insistently for all the sets. But the use is ironic because there are cleaners on a number of occasions who spend some time cleaning and burnishing the gold with their mops. It may look like gold and glitter like gold but it mocks Egypt rather than praise it.

The soldiers wear khaki, frequently only on the bottom half of their bodies, the King and Radames have officer’s uniforms and the High Priest is dressed in the full regalia of a pope. Py does not stop there. When Radames is being tried, there is a burning cross on stage and the judges appear in Ku Klux Klan hoods. The women are dressed in black.

The singing is simply outstanding. Canadian soprano Sondra Radvanovsky sings and acts an Aida that does not miss a note. She owes duty and loyalty to her father Amonasro, the captured Ethiopian King and her beloved country as well as to Radames the man she is in love with. She pours out all her feelings in an unforgettable performance.

Tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko makes a superb Radames. His light tenor voice serves him well for “Celeste Aida” to the final duet where the couple finds apotheosis in love.

Antonenko is an impressive and sonorous Amonasro full of hatred and guile as he convinces his daughter to force Radames to betray Egypt. 

Anita Rachvelishvili is an outstanding Amneris, the princess who hopes to win the hero Radames but cannot defeat the love of Aida.                       

The Chorus and Orchestra of the National Opera of Paris are conducted by Daniel Oren with robustness adding to Py’s ironic approach to the opera.

This is a supremely well-sung production that has a potent point of view that is brilliantly expressed.

ROMEO AND JULIET – REVIEW OF KENNETH BRANAGH’S PRODUCTION IN LONDON

James Karas

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Directed by Kenneth Branagh and Rob Ashford

Romeo Juliet Mercutio Nurse Friar Laurence

Richard Madden                                  Kathryn Wilder Derek Jacobi   Meera Syal                      Samuel Valentine

Continues at the Garrick Theatre, Chaing Cross Road, 

London, England.   

 *** (out of five)

Kenneth Branagh directs an interesting and somewhat idiosyncratic Romeo and Juliet at the Garrick Theatre in London.

Branagh and co-director Rob Ashford set the play in 1950’s Verona and make considerable efforts to give it a distinctly Italian flavour. There is a good dose of Italian spoken and an attempt is made to give the play an Italian emotional wavelength.

 

The balcony scene.Lily James as Juliet and Richard Madden as Romeo. 

Photograph: Johan Persson

Richard Madden as Romeo is an Italian stud, tall, athletic and a man about town. Lily James was indisposed the day I saw the production and Juliet was played by her understudy Kathryn Wilder. She is a tall, self-assured woman and not at all like the thirteen-year old that the text speaks of. She does a very good job in the role.

Branagh is not interested in presenting Juliet as a vulnerable waif. During the party at her house when she meets Romeo, she takes the microphone and sings for the guests. According to the text, when she meets Romeo and he wants to kiss her, she agrees not to move while their lips meet. In Branagh’s version, she throws her arms around his neck.

Branagh makes numerous changes to text and approach. Some of the servants are played by women causing some creakiness but nothing serious. The servant Peter (Zoe Rainey) wearing a nice dress is sent out to invite the guests to the party and we are to believe that (s)he is illiterate. Pushing it a bit and not getting too many laughs despite some boorish behaviour by Romeo’s friends.  

 Photo: Johan Persson

The dirty-minded Nurse, always a delightful character, is played with pizazz by Meera Syal. She is quite a woman and does not hesitate to shake her hips suggestively to Friar Laurence. Samuel Valentine as the Friar is straight and decent as becomes his calling.

Romeo’s friends are usually close to his age but it seems that Derek Jacobi was available and Branagh grabbed him for the role of Mercutio. Jacobi may not be able to handle a street brawl and he is quickly killed but no one can argue with his ability to handle Shakespeare’s lines with finesse and precision.

The costumes by Christopher Oram are high society Verona in the 1950’s, I assume. Tuxedoes for the men, stylish dresses for the women. The set by Oram is dominated by a series of pillars which can be rearranged as needed. The impression is monumental without being overwhelming.

The famous balcony is only three steps above stage level and any ideas about Romeo scaling walls quickly vanish. The scene after Romeo and Juliet have consummated their marriage vows becomes another balcony scene where they appear and discuss the time of day. A bed rolled on the stage would be far more effective.

At the end of the play the distraught Romeo looks at his “dead” wife and thinks that Death keeps Juliet beautiful because he wants her for his mistress. “Ah, dear Juliet,/Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe /That unsubstantial death is amorous, / And …. Keeps / Thee here in dark to be his paramour?” he says. I find these some of the most moving words in Shakespeare. I am not sure that editing them out is the best way to handle the scene.

A worthy production in many ways and a personal view of the play but Branagh comes perilously close to directorial self-indulgence at the expense of the text instead of in enhancement of it.

At the Garrick theatre, London, until 13 August, 2016.

DOCTOR FAUSTUS – REVIEW OF ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY PRODUCTION IN STRATFORD-UPON-AVON

James Karas

Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe

Directed by Maria Aberg

 Designed by Naomi Dawson

Doctor Faustus Mephistophilis Wagner Valdes, Good Angel Cornelius, Evil Angel Lucifer Pride, Duke Covetousness Wrath Envy Gluttony, Emperor Sloth Lechery Pope Cardinal Duchess Helen of Troy

SANDY GRIERSON/ OLIVER RYAN NICHOLAS LUMLEY WILL BLISS JOHN CUMMINS ELEANOR WYLD THEO FRASER STEELE ROSA ROBSON RUTH EVERETT BATHSHEBA PIEPE GABRIEL FLEARY RICHARD LEEMING NATEY JONES TIMOTHY SPEYER GEMMA GOGGIN AMY ROCKSON         JADE CROOT

Continues in repertory at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, England.

http://www.rsc.org.uk/

*** (out of five)

Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus asks an ultimate question: what would you sell your soul for? Dr. Faustus, a scholar in search of knowledge and power, knows the exact price for his soul: He bargains with Mephistopheles, Lucifer’s representative, that he will give his soul to the devil in exchange for 24 years of pleasure and power. Faustus takes a knife to his arm and signs the contract in blood.

 Sandy Grierson as Mephistophilis in Doctor Faustus. Photograph: Helen Maybanks

Director Maria Aberg takes her personal knife to the play in her production for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon. She slashes scenes and lines to bring the whole thing down to one hour and forty five minutes with no intermission.

At the start of the performance, two identically dressed actors walk on the stage of the Swan Theatre, face each other and light matches. When the matches burn out, one of them will play Faustus and the other one will play Mephistophilis. I could not see the match in the hand of one of the actors and therefore I am not sure how they decide who will play what part. If your match burns first, you get to play what?

The interest here is not the method of choosing but Aberg’s take on the two characters and the fact of having two actors who can perform either of the two roles that in the end may be the obverse of the other. The day I saw it Faustus was played by Sandy Grierson and Mephistophilis by Oliver Ryan.

The production is done in modern dress with the bare minimum of props. Faustus’s study is full of banker’s boxes which contain a great deal of learning and wisdom. He tosses all to the ground with contempt. He picks up a hefty Bible and heaves it to the ground, He has a Good Angel and an Evil Angel tugging at him (surely different sides of the same person) but he indulges himself for 24 years until it is time to pay up.

He meets Lucifer (Eleanor Wyld), the big boss one would say, an attractive, blonde woman dressed in angelic white. He meets an Emperor, a Pope, a Duchess and other people. Aberg has most fun with Faustus’s encounter with the Dazedly Sins, who come out as if in a cabaret performance. We also have a company of scholars. Near the end Faustus meets and dances with the scantily dressed Helen of Troy.  

Aberg has inserted a good dose (too much for my taste) of music by Orlando Gough and considerable movements to give the production a modern feel.  

There is some fine acting, especially by the principals, and considerable energy but the core or the soul of the play, if you will, was lost on me. Is it possible for us to accept the premise of Doctor Faustus in modern dress with the setting and theatrical paraphernalia of a modern production? Would it not be more convincing to travel to a time when belief in Lucifer and the battle for our souls was a matter of conviction?

Perhaps. In any event this production failed to say all that I wanted and expected from Marlowe’s great play. 

THE DEEP BLUE SEA – REVIEW OF NATIONAL THEATRE PRODUCTION

James Karas

The Deep Blue Sea by Terence Rattigan

Directed by Carrie Cracknell

Designed by Tom Scutt

Hester Collyer             HELEN McCRORY

Freddie Page               TOM BURKE

William Ciller              PETER SULLIVAN        

Mr Miller                     NICK FLETCHER                                    

Mrs Elton                    MARION BAILEY                     

Philip Welch               HUBERT BURTON

Ann Welch                  YOLANDA KETTLE

Jackie Jackson            ADETOMIWA EDUN

Continues at the Lyttleton Theatre, National Theatre,

South Bank, London England.

**** (out of 5)

Terence Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea deals with a subject as old as Western literature. A wife leaves her husband and takes up with another man, to put it blandly. The prime and perhaps earliest example of this conduct is probably Helen of Troy who abandoned King Menelaus of Sparta and ran off with the young Trojan prince Paris. Let’s assume that Menelaus was not a bad husband and assign a reason to her action. Infatuation, lust, boredom are possible explanations or the ultimate cause for such action which is the inexplicable, incomprehensible and perhaps completely mysterious: love.

Tom Burke and Helen McCrory. Photo: Richard Hubert Smith

Now let’s look at Hester Collyer, the heroine of Rattigan’s play. She is the artistic daughter of a clergyman who married Sir William Collyer, a handsome and successful judge of the high court. They live in high society and have all the benefits that money and position can offer. She meets Freddie Page, a former test pilot and leaves her husband. Whatever his past achievements, when the play begins Freddie is unemployed, drinks too much, and plays scant attention to Hester. When the curtain goes up Hester is discovered to have attempted to commit suicide.

The play then deals with an exploration of Hester’s reasons for taking such a drastic action. Sir William is a perfect gentleman and there is no apparent reason for her leaving him. He is handsome, successful, without any hint of mistreating her.

Freddie Page is what we would now call a loser. He went to Canada after the war where he lost his job as a test pilot for misconduct. He ignores Hester much of the time so he can have his own fun. Why is she staying with him? The first clue is when he arrives at their apartment and she embraces him with passion. The sexual attraction is obvious but we don’t want to believe that lust is the only reason she is living with the lout.

Helen McCrory gives a superb performance as a woman with deep conflicts who puts up with mistreatment and poverty with a “nobody” who offers great sex and, we must believe, she loves. We watch her develop and work through her emotional trauma and come to terms with her life.

Peter Sullivan as William Collyer is straight-backed, rational and kind in his own way but he has no passion in him and that is perhaps his Achilles’ heel. Tom Burke as Freddie goes from bad to worse and convinces us that he is not worthy of Hester but that is not the same as convincing her.

Rattigan has some interesting characters who are Hester’s neighbours. The most finely drawn and synthetic person is Mr. Miller, a German, a trained doctor who is no longer practicing. But he is a real mensch and Nick Fletcher brings out his humanity and decency is a fine performance.

Marion Fletcher plays the sympathetic but nosey landlady Mrs. Elton. Hubert Burton is the ineffectual but decent neighbour Philp Welch and Yolanda Kettle his equally ineffectual wife.

Director Carrie Campbell handles the play with sensitivity and makes it dramatic without making it maudlin or melodramatic. A fine job.

Designer Tom Scutt’s two-story set gives an impression of the apartment building with doors of other units and stairs visible at the back.

The lighting designed by Guy Hoare tended towards the dark and bleak but I am not sure if the production would have suffered much of the apartment was better lit.

The play may hark back to Greek mythology but for Terence Rattigan it had an autobiographical inspiration. The gay playwright was abandoned by his young lover for another man. He could not very well write a play about homosexual love but this was his expiation of a terrible chapter in his life. Menelaus would have understood.

A superb night at the theatre.