Well, by this time the Ed Hall era had started at Hampstead Theatre, but this one didn’t really work for us.
It felt to us like an “everything including the kitchen sink” gay saga. Angels in America without the sparkling wit, The Normal Heart without the heart-wrenching pathos. It spanned the decades from 1962 (a fine year IMHO) to the present day.
We really wanted to like it. We didn’t really dislike it. It just didn’t grip and/or move us.
Good troupe from the Liverpool Everyman – it was a shame really.
Tanya Franks was in it, which was one for the NewsRevue alumni “where are they now” department.
I don’t remember much about this play, which is not a great sign. Perhaps my mind was on the Ashes match unfolding at Lord’s that weekend, but more likely, if the reviews are anything to go by, this was not a classic.
By gosh was I pleased when I learnt that my local, The Gate Theatre in Notting Hill, was to put on this play. Some years earlier, I had bought a book of European plays in translation and had read this play, along with some narrative about it, with a mixture of fascination and wonderment. Part of my wonderment was thinking about how on earth the play might be performed, but I suspected at the time that I would never see the piece in production.
Unlike my “how on earth might this play be performed?” musings, it worked remarkably well in this imaginative production in the Gate’s small-scale, theatre-above-a-pub environment. The Gate has reliably been extremely good at doing this sort of thing over the years.
Superb…
…was my single word verdict, which summed it up for both me and Janie.
Our friend, Michael Billington, gave a similar verdict in The Guardian, lauding performers Sean Gallagher and Jenny Quayle, plus translator Thomas Fisher in particular:
Susannah Clapp gave it a glowing and quite lengthy review in the Observer, especially praising the director, Gordon Anderson and the designer, Jane Singleton:
