“The highlight is Sandra Ho’s acting. She is a class above the rest and her acting against Chahidi are the best scenes in the play.“
Con Nats
3.5 Novels
The latest in the National Theatre Live series takes on an updated version of the dark satirical comedy by Molière: The Misanthrope, rewritten by Martin Crimp. This version is set in modern England, names have been changed, characters merged and topics updated.
Alice (Sandra Oh, Killing Eve) is an angry lady and a brilliant writer. Her books are dark and widely acclaimed, but her political views are not. There’s a Berlin prize and €200,000 prize money if she expresses regret at her comments , which she refuses to do. While the topic is skirted, it’s obvious it has to do with Palestine. She is our misanthropic Celeste.
Her gay friend John (Paul Chahidi) tries to be her guide towards compromise. He’s a playwright of gently funny inoffensive comedies. And Stefan (Tom Mison) is her younger actor lover who is trying to make a comeback after a breakdown in his marriage to Elaine (Jemima Rooper) and his alcoholism. Alice seems to be a contradiction but resolute in her opinions and right to an opinion. And she doesn’t want to be part of a Tik-Toking world which critiques your every thought and move.
Alice is under attack from a pretentious influencer Esme (Imogen Elliot) and wants to go off grid and escape it all. Stefan has to decide between a role in a series that will take him away from his children and Alice, and give him the comeback he craves or join Alice in self-imposed exile.
All the action is set in one Baroque drawing room after another and this is very wordy theatre. Long scenes with long diatribes cover topics such truth and compromising your ideals, the folly of love, the patriarchy, the power of social media and the internet, the comfort of the middle class and their focus on family while others face poverty and death. (It also takes a cheeky dig at Simon Stone’s The Seagull which I enjoyed.) Many of these are like well written Facebook rants and it is the sort of theatre many dread. They are views upon views which serve up the satire but rarely drive the plot.
The script, like the original, is written in rhyme and has lots of invective. Some like Chahidi are more faithful to its structure while Ho and others deliver it in such a naturalistic way, you can miss it. The dialogue is rich but sometimes you wonder if a word is chosen for its rhyme rather than its meaning.
One of the limitations of this play is that only Alice’s character is given depth. All the other characters are one dimensional and are there to serve up the writer’s politics through his wordy rants.
The highlight is Sandra Ho’s acting. She is a class above the rest and her acting against Chahidi are the best scenes in the play. Ho has a ton of script to deliver, which she does with an angry charm. John (aka Philinte) is more complex, Mison as Stefan is very good, but their character’s limits hold them back. Rina Fatania has fun with Indira, the publicist, but goes over the top. Indhu Rubasingham’s direction is solid.
The final act turns the stage dark with candlelight for a performance night where everyone dresses up and states their case, in strict rhyme, in adoration of Alice. It is done with a touch of absurdity that is incongruous with the rest of the play. I felt the resolution wasn’t a satisfying one although it does respect the original play. I’m just not sure what this one is saying.
Con Nats, On The Screen
