Four stars
After the clipped 1950’s tones of the first scene of Alexi Kaye Campbell‘s 2008 Olivier award-winning debut, it’s a bit of a shock when the lights go up again to find Mathew Horne standing there in full Nazi regalia.
But The Pride is a shocking play all round.
During it’s two and a half hour duration I kept thinking about the excellent programme notes I’d just read regarding the ‘monstrous martyrdoms’ leading to gay and lesbian equality.
How far we’ve come, I thought, from 1958 when half the play is set, how far, from the ‘gross indecency’ trials that frightened all gay men into silence and a world of fear and recriminations, and a theatre that couldn’t even use the word ‘homosexual’, let alone depict it.
But this is the repressed world that Oliver (a terrific Al Weaver), a writer of children’s books, Philip (Harry Hadden-Paton), an estate agent, and Sylvia (Hayley Atwell), a book illustrator, inhabit.
Philip and Sylvia are in a marriage they both know is a brittle sham (although it’s not without its real affection), when Sylvia introduces the shy, intelligent Oliver to her bluff husband, not realising and realising what’s very likely to occur.
What does occur is not often seen – apart from the explosive conclusion of their relationship – but is discussed in the clipped tones of the time, so reminiscent of Rattigan or Coward. Oliver and Philip have ‘an understanding,’ and when the dreaded ‘H’ word is mentioned, by Sylvia talking about her theatre friend who killed himself (“I think he must have been a……homosexual, Philip”) in an attempt to get her husband to open up, the air freezes in the room.
Running parallel, and skillfully interwoven, is the story of three more lives, the lives of very similar people – Oliver, Philip and Sylvia again – living in a freer age, half a century on.
The same actors play the same parts in the different ages, sometimes leaping from one to the other whilst on stage, creating two narratives that interweave, echo, clash and compliment. This isn’t a simple ‘compare and contrast’ of the eras though: the characters in each age are too well-defined and believable in themselves for that, and the play itself far too layered. The device never feels tricksy and the piece never contrived.
The modern characters are preparing for Pride. Philip has left Oliver over the latter’s addiction to casual sex, leaving best friend Sylvia to pick up the pieces. Oliver hears voices, he says. They call his name, and on Soutra Gilmour’s wonderfully dark, sparkling set, we see Philip (whether it’s his past or present incarnation isn’t made clear) calling out to Oliver, in a spine-tingling moment of connection.
Kay Campbell has a fine ear for both period and modern dialogue and the staccato rhythm of the 50’s scenes are wonderfully complimented by the sprawl and comparative sloppiness of the modern ones. Everything appears so neat, so tidy, so….so, in the former, like a jagged, glittering surface hiding a deep, dark abyss of turmoil, whereas the latter is casual, louche, knowing, but this time hiding a different sort of turmoil: the angst behind the ‘we can have it all now but we’re still not happy’ generation. Is Oliver happier in the present day than the past? Is Philip? Sylvia, the straight character, is ironically the only one who seems in any way liberated.
Al Weaver is the stand out as the two Olivers, his lithe frame managing to make the past Oliver look delicate and intellectual, and the present one kittenish and needy. It’s difficult to take your eyes off him when he’s on stage, while Harry Hadden-Paton makes you still feel for past Philip even after the despicable thing he ends up doing. Hayley Atwell is assured in both her parts, not losing her grip on either for a second.
The one gripe I have is Mathew Horne. Playing three minor but essential parts – a rent boy, an editor of a lads’ mag, and a psychiatrist – he’s just not got the depth to quite pull the acting feat off in such company. When his ‘editor’ suddenly switches gear in a rant about how things have changed in the lads’ mag business, to talk about his uncle who died of AIDS, the shift is too abrupt and he only just squeaks through.
The others carry out these very abrupt changes and transformations with aplomb on the marvellous, sparse set, made up of a huge square mirror with the silver rubbed through at the back to give a ghostly, gilded, period feel. The different ‘ages’ pass by each other on stage, in the gloom, as if ghosts brushing past one another. But which one is real and which the ghost? It’s these super evocative echoes that make this play so special, and that are superbly handled by Jamie Lloyd who also directed its debut at the Royal Court five years ago.
Kaye Campbell‘s writing mixes with ease the banal and the profound, and he injects enough humour to balance out the extremely tense moments that run through the play. It’s a sensitively handled piece as you’d imagine, but there are no kid gloves on show either: it pulls its punches hard and grabs your throat with a tenacious grip when it wants.
Go see, if only for the excellent and moving protest against what’s happening in Russia presently, that the cast display at the curtain call. A standing ovation was richly deserved for both the play and the sentiments.
WHAT: The Pride
WHERE: Trafalgar Studios, Whitehall, London
WHEN: Until November 9
TICKETS: £24.50 – £65
MORE INFO: view: http://www.trafalgar-studios.co.uk/The-Pride.html
RUNNING TIME: 2 hours 20 (with interval)
WOULD I GO AGAIN: Yep. Fab acting, fab cast, fab writing, fab directing, fab protest
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