It’s not often that I see a contemporary play. Actually, come to think of it, I’ve only been to one before, Tom Stoppard’s The Hard Problem, this year at the National. I’m so busy trying to catch up on some fifty years of not having gone to the theatre that there is now hardly enough time, let alone money, to pay much attention to what is new. It’s also a far more speculative venture. Yet…. it is a bridge that must be crossed. At some point, I will have to start seeing what’s on playwrights’ minds today. What are they thinking about? How are they trying to articulate today’s concerns and realities on stage? Why? What are the challenges? What would it mean to write today, and not just for the theatre? And, inevitably, am I up to it?
Four things drew me to this play: Roger Allam was acting, David Hare was writing, the Hampstead Theatre was hosting, and I was to be in London in any case. Allam, along with Simon Russell Beale is most often spoken of as the greatest actor of my generation (Branagh is also mentioned, though not so often). Moreover, Allam has felt like a kindred spirit, since I listened to him read T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets this August, at the Wanamaker, with Angela Hewitt playing Bach. Hare seems to have plays out everywhere these days, and it was his version of Chekhov’s plays that I saw this weekend in Chichester, so perhaps not a bad contemporary playwright with whom to begin. The Hampstead Theatre is devoted entirely to new works, it is very highly regarded, and both Allam and Beale seem to be regulars here, so not a bad place to start.
“... story of an intense love affair between unlikely bedfellows, and of the unrelenting search for artistic excellence in the face of searing scrutiny, sacrifice and war.”
I had no idea what the play would be about, until I took a glance at the text over breakfast this morning. The writing quite delighted me, and made me really look forward to this evening. I’m beginning to think that it’s not a bad idea to end every theatre trip with something lighter and reasonably contemporary. Something buoyant. This play was about the couple who founded the Glyndebourne Festival of opera. If you are at all into opera, this play would be manna from heaven. It’s a very nicely relayed story. Very touching. A story not only of the love of an extraordinary English couple, but also of German artists fleeing Hitler in the 1930s. If you get a chance (but not this run in London, which was sold out long ago), get out to see it, or buy the book.
I know that I could never be used as a measure, because I’m probably more emotionally susceptible than most, but I certainly had tears of delight in my eyes at times, and tears of wistful sadness at others.
The Theatre’s Blurb:
Nobody can doubt John Christie’s passion or his formidable will: he wooed his opera singer wife with a determination befitting a man who won the Military Cross. Now, in 1934, this Etonian science teacher’s admiration for the works of Wagner leads him to embark on an ambitious project: the construction of an Opera House on his estate in Sussex.
But such is the scale of the enterprise that passion alone may not be enough. It’s only when a famous violinist is accidentally fogged in overnight in Eastbourne that Christie first hears word of a group of refugees for whom life in Germany is becoming impossible. Perhaps they can deliver Christie’s vision of the sublime – assuming of course they’re willing to cast his wife in the lead…
David Hare’s new play is the story of an intense love affair between unlikely bedfellows, and of the unrelenting search for artistic excellence in the face of searing scrutiny, sacrifice and war.
Reviews: