ARTS
Many happy returns?
Mark Amory
Arash of revivals makes my poor memory a positive advantage this week. Each new production of supposedly familiar plays contains lines that come as fresh as spring to me and of course with translations it is possible they are. I did not recall how often in Uncle Vanya characters described themselves. Just when I was thinking that the country doctor Astrov (Dinsdale Landen) was rather coarse, he suddenly said so himself; when criticisms from Vanya (Michael Bryant) seemed so fierce as to suggest envy, he pointed this out. This planting of the thought before the utterance shows a certain skill in the actor but little more. This disillusioned pair seemed the heart of the play in Michael Bogdanov's production, and were not in fact as straightforwardly played as the women. My only positive complaint, one that you would not expect after Vanya had made his entrance by falling off 'a garden seat, was that they did not generate more fun. Usually I resist the over-quoted em-
phasis Chekhov put on his plays being com- edies but I found this lugubrious (and am amazed others did not). You should be ir- ritated by some dolt in the audience who, invited to laugh and cry at the same time, does the opposite to you on occasion. Vanya's hopeless attempts at assassination, with his target creeping back to see what happened, raised a few titters but overall English melancholy prevailed, draining away the life of the play, in spite of much talent and intelligence being displayed. The professor had always seemed to me the only entirely odious figure in Chekhov but Basil Henson managed to show his point of view, even if it was only that he too was having an unbearable time. When the old nurse (Madoline Thomas, also excellent) leads him away to bed, he enjoys, wallows in, be- ing a little boy again and the scene takes off, as most of the evening did not.
The line I had forgotten from Hedda Gabler was: 'What a miserable middle-class world I have got myself into.' Hedda is always isolated from all but her old beau Judge Brack by her sharpness in conversa- tion but that she is downwardly socially mobile is not always so stressed. Her new husband and aunt Julie are most at ease with their inadequate maid. Hedda may have become the female equivalent of Hamlet, 'a hoop through which every emi- nent actor must, sooner or later, jump', but there is no mystery to her. I belong to the school that thinks you meet her at dinner once a week. The difficulty is not to explain her but to win sympathy in spite of her behaviour. Susannah York starts strongly. She looks terrific in white and gold, a prize indeed for bookish Tesman, whom Ralph Bates makes young and endearing, when his
'Okay, so you're an Englishman, he's a Scotsman, and I'm an Irishman. What's so funny about that?'
Spectator 29 May 1982 obtuseness is not too irritating. She remains still, her surprisingly husky voice usual1, containing the implication that he has saw' that before. Later the traditional restless pacing gets going and what with the Or shots and blackmail melodrama descends' as it need not. There is a snobbery which suggests that certain classics are too demon' ding for any but the subsidised comPanlej Offered a mixed bag of has-beens an television performers in fancy dress I have almost subscribed to it. Donald McW111°' nie's decent production shows how false it is.
About the 1958 production of Vainrold I can remember nothing except
Adrian's performance as Cardinal Pire1" and on examination he does not seem to have been in it. There are certain authors , can hardly believe I do not like, they seer° so much to my taste and come so powerful' ly recommended. Nathanial West is one, Firbank, another. It was a relief to me td find that Evelyn Waugh went off him. f,,,,h°r, Berners quoted Firbank as saying: `1'`i Church of Rome wouldn't have me so mock her', and it is true I get no frisson from naughty prelates. Still outrageous , goings-on in a rural paradise with seducer' paying little attention to sex, colour ° creed, the adjectives as highly coloured as the clothes, the voices plunging and swoor ing with the feathered hats — it all solol.,d5 diverting. Three of the original cast real"; but as 'centenarians are as common as be they are still on the young side. Sandy Wilson's score is charming, the odd b. fiv striking. But when my companion sniltiv said it was all very silly, it was hard to disagree. Like most London theatregoers I ha. le watched little Racine and had no memorieSc false or otherwise, of Berenice. It is a stati: tale of private feeling sacrified to duty' Roman Emperor agonising but finally re, flouncing his love because she is unaeli table to his people. Each of the three /113_,, characters (their faithful friend has love; her silently) has a confidant and on aat almost bare stage they deliver speeches t, one another and pace about, eyes frequefla ly cast to the earth or the heavens. It Is world in which passions remain coastai; and no one lies, yet there is ell°1!e misunderstanding for ironies to proffer; and emotions to become tangled. It libe been thought to be so un-English as to unplayable here. I can imagine that' tIlf, French have a more stylised and perhaf's,eal fective way of moving as well as the origin language; what these actors offer is a fiejt, blaze of emotion that sweeps the play {0a ward. Peter Eyre, always subtle, finds power I had never suspected, Martyrs `1)r bridge is a golden eagle or perhaps ono Captain of Eton, but never a prig, ariciAse the centre Sheila Gish is lucid and Pre:',"55 without her power faltering. Modern 011.'0 and Shakespearian echoes in the verse Werr momentarily distracting and then felLacro propriate. Christopher Fettes has given uet, worthy production of a supposedly int° able masterpiece.
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