Friends reunited
Lloyd Evans
Embers Duke of York Rotozaza Bullion Rooms The Shadow Box Southwark Playhouse
Sandor Marai is one of those names that makes reviewers fidget uncomfortably. I’ve never heard of him, nor can I say with any confidence what country he’s from or what continent. A Finn, a Maori, an Eskimo? It turns out he’s Hungarian and his literary career follows the familiar Mittel European blueprint. He was once a great genius, then he was forgotten, then he shot himself, then he was rediscovered and became a great genius again. Written in 1940, Embers is his masterpiece. But it’s a novel, not a play, and it seems extraordinary that Michael Blakemore and his adaptor Christopher Hampton didn’t run a mile from this convoluted material.
Embers is a narrow and extremely static book in which two octogenarians meet before death to discuss friendship, betrayal, a long-dead woman and the day when a deer-hunt nearly went wrong. Trying to adapt this for the stage is barmy. The events are inconclusive and occurred in the past, the love interest has popped her clogs and two old boys are so ancient they can’t stand up without creaking. But the intractable bolus has been elucidated and transformed, by some miracle, into an unusual and compelling piece of theatre.
On press night Peter Davison’s soaring design drew a gasp of amazed pleasure from the audience. True, most of them had been guzzling rocket-fuel for an hour before curtain up, but their response was justified. The nobleman Henrik’s castle is a magnificent composition: creamy buttressed walls blackened with cracks and cobwebs, and a slender central column supporting a vast vaulted canopy. Lightness and solidity are harmonised with amazing beauty and grace. In fact, the wow-factor is so intoxicating that Jeremy Irons, as Henrik, does nothing for several minutes but potter about the stage while the audience gazes enviously at his sitting-room.
Irons, speaking through a small mulberry bush of beard, is perfectly cast as the aged army veteran betrayed by his best friend. And Patrick Malahide is marvellous as the pensive, faintly creepy ex-patriot Konrad. Having crossed half the world to reach the dinner engagement, Konrad accepts an aperitif from Henrik and they start talking. And that’s all they do. Talk. Michael Blakemore has stripped away all inessentials from his staging. He lets the story tell itself. The visual highlight of the first act comes when Jeremy Irons opens a window. In the second half, Patrick Malahide does virtually nothing but sit rigidly in his chair and listen to his old friend’s charming, measured, wise and deadly accusations. I kept imagining I was going to lose interest but I followed every word, rapt. Though nothing happens the play is never slow. Time isn’t being wasted here but shown in motion. It becomes a character, a silent advocate in the debate about the value of friendship, about its enduring nature, about its primacy over every other human appetite or obligation.
The two old boys admit that their relationship was coloured by hatred, envy and betrayal. No apologies are sought, and none is given. Henrik asks only for an explanation and, when Konrad refuses to oblige, Henrik accepts this. It even pleases him. As you can imagine, these paradoxical Socratic complexities are not the stuff of West End long-runners. It’ll last a few months at the most but grab it while you can. Its mysterious and magical atmosphere will linger for years.
Rotozaza is a troupe of zany youngsters who specialise in festival-friendly mime shows. This one is so ‘Edinburgh’ you can almost hear the bagpipes. It opens with three swimmers responding to directions given by an off-stage voice. It sounds like a dire drama-school exercise (in fact, it probably is a dire drama-school exercise), but it works well because the actors have charm and humour and they remain alive to the artificial absurdity of the situation. The scenes become increasingly ambitious and pretentious. Two masked gangsters manhandle an Olympic acrobat while being observed by an ageing see-through pope whose illuminated robes reveal the shadow of what appears to be fish or a swimming baby. Ah, yes, I nodded sagely to myself. That old chestnut. The transparent pontiff with a trout in his pants. Their material is bonkers enough to be promising, and if Rotozaza can learn how to tell a story properly they’ll succeed.
Unlike The Shadow Box, which is a disappointing muddle. Lucy Briers is the only bright spot in this soppy American melodrama. I’m amazed this play even made it to the London stage.
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