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Show: Absolute Hell
Society: National Theatre (professional)
Venue: Lyttelton Theatre
Credits: Rodney Ackland
Type: Sardines
Author: Chris Abbott
Performance Date: 25/04/2018
Absolute Hell
Chris Abbott | 26 Apr 2018 11:46am
It’s always interesting to see the NT revisiting a text they have explored before, and this was certainly the case with Absolute Hell, Rodney Ackland’s play having been first presented by the NT in 1995 after its rediscovery by the Orange Tree in Richmond. The latest production is in a very different style to the earlier one, although the acting is once again of a very high standard. Rather than a totally naturalistic presentation, this time we are given an expressionist one, with a skeletal building where we are more aware of the events that encircle the Soho drinking den, and an acting style which is at times deliberately mannered.
It’s interesting, too, that where the earlier NT production used the music of the 1930s, the evening began this time with the singing of La Vie en Rose, written in the year in which the play is set, 1945. Almost all the characters in the play are still looking backwards however, trying to escape from the reality which is all around them and keeps intruding upon their protected life in the club. This intrusion is shown partly through the addition of characters such as the typist in an upstairs room preparing for a Labour victory, and the neighbourhood prostitute regularly walking across the front of the stage. Both decisions by director Joe Hill-Gibbons made sense but were perhaps over-worked and became too prominent as the play progressed.
Although some of his other decisions, such as the use of overlapping dialogue and the action continuing offstage, did not always succeed either, this was in many ways an inventive and thought-provoking reworking of a fascinating play. Joe Hill-Gibbons was particularly successful with the brittle and desperate humour of the first act, much of it underlining the dawning realisation of what lies ahead which confronts many of these empty and wounded characters by the end of the play. He also brings out well as the centre of the play the fate of the friend in Germany whose demise cannot be acknowledged by her feckless though distraught friend, and the plight of the refugees who always seem to be created by conflict.
Kate Fleetwood was a brittle and vulnerable Christine, damaged as are so many of these characters by the experience of the Second World War. As world-weary Hugh Marriner, Charles Edwards is superb and gives us a believable if not wholly likeable figure who shares much of Ackland’s own life story. As Siegfried, Danny Webb contributes a thoughtful portrayal of a complex character.
Around these damaged individuals swirl a large cast of characters, all well-acted despite Ackland’s tendency to caricature his female characters as opposed to the more nuanced men in the play. In a cast with no weak links, among those worthy of special mention were Esh Alladi’s loyal but spurned Cyril, a bravura performance opposite the equally impressive but sinisterly camp Jonathan Slinger playing his boss Maurice Hussey. John Sackville’s hesitant Douglas Eden and Prasanna Puwanarajah as Nigel Childs provided varying facets of engagement with the real world and did so with considerable truthfulness.
Liza Sadovy’s Treacle Queen and Eileen Walsh as a Northern Irish evangelist seize every opportunity they are given, as does, in a more understated way, Stephanie Jacob as loyal Doris, who can see that all around her are trying to escape from reality. Joanna David and Patricia England totally convince as ladies who would probably lunch if times were different – and with the best hats in the play. Looking like someone from an Otto Dix picture, Jenny Galloway is a striking R B Monody, Ackland’s revenge on critics. If anyone at the Press Night should feel this was a caricature they need only look at the disparate crew penned in the Press drinks enclosure at the interval.
The set from Lizzie Clachan provides many areas of interest, sometimes too many for it can be difficult to know where to look next; although this dilemma was partly solved by the decision to play most of the first act in sepulchral gloom. How disappointing to be given acting of such a high standard and yet not to be able to see faces; it was a relief that part of the second act, at least, was better lit, presumably to represent the daylight entering the now crumbling building. Nicky Gillibrand’s costume designs totally convinced however, and this was, to all extents, a successful presentation of a play which has something to say to today’s audience, themselves all too ready to hurtle headlong into a future they have not understood and refuse to acknowledge.
- : admin
- : 25/04/2018