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Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
PATRICK MARMION reviews In Praise Of Love at the Orange Tree Theatre: Neat twists and terrific acting lift period drama purgatory
In Praise Of Love (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond) Verdict: Love stuck Letters From Max (Hampstead) Verdict: Tragic poetry Terence Rattigan brings out the Italian in me – which is strange as I don't have a single Latin gene in my body. Yet all his English emotional understatement leaves me aching for operatic outpourings. And his 1973 play, In Praise Of Love, is a prime example of his Anglo-Saxon reserve. Reportedly inspired by his friend Rex Harrison's marriage to his third wife (of six), Kay Kendall, it's about a former WWII Estonian resistance fighter Lydia (Claire Price) hiding a terminal illness from her chauvinist literary critic husband Sebastian (Dominic Rowan). Why this subterfuge should be seen as evidence of enduring love is beyond me. Her servility – and his pomposity – is surely also evidence of coercive control. And yet, despite a first half drowning in a vat of viscous exposition, explaining themselves to each other and a biddable American friend, the second half is much more intriguing. The arrival of their son Joey (Joe Edgar), a Liberal Party activist and rookie writer, forces them to stop beating about the bush. Before that Rowan is confined to a straitjacket of two-dimensional ineptitude but he is thankfully granted a third dimension after the interval. And being Estonian, Price's breezy, charming resourceful Lydia is given free rein throughout, as we discover her fascinating history as a resistance fighter. Until then, emotional lockdown is maintained by rivers of Scotch, while Amelia Sears's tidy production takes us down memory lane on Peter Butler's set of Scandinavian painted floorboards, G-plan furniture and super-snug flares. But thanks to a few neat twists – and some terrific acting – we are, eventually, released from Rattigan's period purgatory. There is no shortage of emotional exposition downstairs at the Hampstead Theatre, where they are hosting a eulogy for American poet Max Ritvo, who died of cancer in 2016, aged just 25. His story is told in letters exchanged with his writing tutor, Sarah Ruhl, at Yale University. Written by Ruhl herself, the play charts their relationship over the last few years of his short life – his dread of what he calls 'chemo-land'; her increasing awe at his literary talent – as they probe questions of life and death. There is no shortage of emotional exposition downstairs at the Hampstead Theatre, where they are hosting a eulogy for American poet Max Ritvo, who died of cancer in 2016, aged just 25. Letters From Max is on until June 28 'Dreams,' Max muses, 'show the life beyond life... but death is not the life beyond life.' Elsewhere, he is more esoteric and, crucially, his poetry – of which there is a lot – is more reflective than dramatic and doesn't drive change. That, however, doesn't stop Eric Sirakian immersing himself in Max, revealing him as a visionary child. And Sirine Saba is no less emotionally steeped in the attentive role of kind-hearted Ruhl. Blanche McIntyre's production is also a journey into the underworld, reversing the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice on a glossy black set with an alternately cheerful and mournful cellist, Laura Moody. Much depends on how Ritvo's poetry lands with you. He had huge talent, but sadly needed more time to develop than he was given. In Praise Of Love runs until July 5. Letters From Max is on until June 28.
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
In Praise of Love review – secrets and lies circle a family on the brink
Terence Rattigan distilled the unassailable emotional permafrost that settles between his upper middle-class English couples with a singular mastery. But this production shows his late work contains genuine warmth – and love – beneath the disappointments and dishonesties of married life. Longsuffering wife Lydia (Claire Price) seems stranded in her marriage to the pompous and hectoring Sebastian (Dominic Rowan) who – quite literally – cannot change a lightbulb without her assistance. When they are visited by successful American writer Mark (Daniel Abelson), who has always loved Lydia, the plot seems to promise a love triangle. But this play, written as part of a double bill in 1973, wrongfoots those expectations. It veers in several directions, from serious illness and impending death to father-son wrangles between Sebastian and Joey (Joe Edgar), who is an aspiring TV writer. Thrown into the mix is Lydia's 'outsider' status (she is Estonian) with talk of refugees as outsiders to 'Englishness' along with the lived memories of the Holocaust, as well as political debates that set Sebastian's champagne Marxism against Joey's embrace of the Liberal party. The play was said to be loosely inspired by Rex Harrison and his last (sixth) wife, Kay Kendall, who died two years after they were married, in 1959. The play creaks with female sacrifice that feels peculiarly of its time: Lydia lives in service to Sebastian, tending to his every need. And even when she suspects him of an affair, she still plans for his future welfare. Directed by Amelia Sears, the production does not try to disguise the datedness. This is a 1970s world of tiny black and white TV sets, drinks cabinets and dutiful wives. Staged four years before Rattigan died in 1977, it deals with impending death, but also the characteristic peering under the bonnet of a couple's secrets; Lydia with her illness, Sebastian with an off-stage female lover who might well be the coded homosexual partner often found in Rattigan's work. There is nervy humour and Price gives a delicate performance as Lydia, capturing the psychological subtleties of her part, while Rowan is sufficiently sledge-hammer as her boorish husband. Still, it is not as monumental a play as The Deep Blue Sea, also about the disenchantments of romance, nor is it as chamber-like as some of Rattigan's double-bills (such as Summer 1954). The parts of Joey and Mark feel like cogs to the plot, which itself is so busy that it dilutes emotional focus. But it is a tender work that leaves you with the picture of a family, fractious certainly, but loving too in their own way – and together until the end. Like so many Rattigan marriages, there are secrets and lies here but underneath there is a love that smoulders. At Orange Tree theatre, London, until 5 July
