Terence Rattigan’s 1973 play, ‘In Praise of
Love’, is the current touring repertory production by talking Scarlet. This company are no novices to approaching
the work of highly regarded playwrights, and since 2001 have produced plays by John
McGrath, Michael Frayn, Samuel Beckett and Alan Ayckbourn, to name but a few. This is testimony not only to their savvy
programming choice, but also to their fearless approach to the stage: this
production of Rattigan’s achingly beautiful play listens carefully to his voice
as he writes of the very human fear of feeling emotion at all, and it screams
it in silent looks, in tearful eyes and defensive displays of nonchalance.
It is a play of many layers, mainly due to
the secrets that Lydia and Sebastian, a married couple, keep from each other. Without giving too much of the plot away, it
is a story of revelations that are told to everyone except the people the
characters love the most, and who best deserve to know. And in this respect, it asks how far we go to
protect the feelings of the ones we love, as well as ourselves.
It is heartbreaking to watch true love
unfold in this way, particularly in talking Scarlet’s production. The characters are well considered and
truthfully portrayed, allowing moments of stillness to speak in volumes. In particular is Jo Castleton’s performance
as Lydia, who needs only to stand and grip hold of the sofa to communicate
everything we need to know about her emotional state. It is an honest, vulnerable performance, enriched
by the believable scarring from her survival as an Estonian refugee and turmoil
at facing a terminal illness.
Castleton is well supported by John Hester’s
solid performance as Mark, her rock and confidente, and George Telfer as her impossible
husband Sebastian. It is Sebastian who
has the most significant development across the play, stripped down to his true
self in parallel with the pace at which the secrets unfold, a journey that is
deftly played by Telfer to shattering effect.
Rattigan’s play belongs to a strand of theatre
whose main action takes place within the intricacies of the relationships
between characters, comparable to the work of J.B Priestley or Mike Leigh. That is to say, the physical world in which
the characters live does not change, it is purely the atmosphere created by the
dramatic tension that shifts. In this
regard, we find that even in a moment such as Lydia showing off her present
from Mark, an expensive mink coat, the significance of a seemingly small moment
is actually enormous.
Unfortunately, this production did not
quite hit all of these moments with full force, allowing the audience to drift
away at times as if the action did not matter.
On the flipside, a moment was sometimes hit with too much force, and a
character breaking down or storming out of the room would have thrived off the
actors’ otherwise subtle approach.
However, what this production achieves best
of all is in telling the story of people that we believe in, delight in and are
moved to tears by, and in this respect talking Scarlet do great justice to
Rattigan’s play.
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