Ralph Fiennes is utterly compelling in David Hare's smart new play

Yahoo

04-07-2025

For all his routinely acclaimed screen performances (latterly Conclave, The Return and 28 Years Later), Ralph Fiennes is a consummate theatre animal. And he lays claim to that terrain with zeal in an ambitious three-pronged season in Bath that begins with him incarnating – in accomplished style – one of the giants of the Victorian stage – Henry Irving (1838-1905). Grace Pervades, a new play by David Hare (with whom he has collaborated much of late), centres on the professional and personal relationship that flowered between Irving and fellow luminary Ellen Terry during his legendary tenure (1878-1899) running the Lyceum in the West End as a multi-tasking actor-manager.
With Miranda Raison (formerly of Spooks fame) bringing charm and, yes, grace to the role of actress Terry, there's ample to snare our attention. Do we need so much on shifting theatre trends? Arguably not, but that's no reason to miss out on a play of pervasive insight that successfully evokes a bygone era of tremendous thespian industry, innovation and celebrity.
Irving – the first actor to be awarded a knighthood – had his detractors as well as his admirers, the latter group including the Telegraph's Clement Scott, who hailed his Hamlet as a 'noble contribution to dramatic art'. Interestingly, Hare puts some of the fiercest criticism of Irving's limitations – his mind more impressive than his body – in the actor's own mouth.
Fiennes's stiff, stooped Irving, with dragging leg and scholarly sweep of hair, woos Terry to join his Lyceum venture on the basis that her joyful radiance will compensate for his natural tendency to dourness (Fiennes is now a past master at a tragicomic air of careworn melancholy). That his instincts about Terry are correct gets amply proven in Jeremy Herrin's fleet production (replete with scenic transformations): in swift succession, a decorously attired, refulgent Raison spellbinds as Portia, Lady Macbeth and Viola. Prone to self-doubt too, Terry frets that Irving's silence about her Ophelia is a sign of dislike; in fact, it's because he is in awe.
The script – Hare's dialogue is characteristically crisp – catches the handed-on wonders of the art form, along with its innate requirement to change. But there's something muted about the pair's disputes over Terry's under-nourishing supporting roles and frustrated yearning to play Rosalind (one notes that Fiennes directs As You Like It next). Still, the full, fascinating complexity of their necessarily covert close personal bond is left for us to surmise. Nor do we get to see this leading classical actor donning the mantle of Irving the full-blooded Shakespearean.
The focus darts often to Terry's estimable (illegitimate) offspring – Edward Gordon Craig and Edith Craig. Jordan Metcalfe is enjoyably bumptious as theatre's self-appointed, theorising saviour, while Ruby Ashbourne Serkis is likeably grounded as his equally pioneering sister. Other passing dramatis personae include Isadora Duncan and Konstantin Stanislavski. Hare is too good a writer for us to feel that he has bitten off more than we can chew. But he could afford to give the big draw – the veiled power-couple romance at the evening's heart – even more room to breathe, and blaze.
Until July 19. Tickets: theatreroyal.org.uk
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