Theatreguide.London
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The Theatreguide.London Review
In March 2020 the covid-19 epidemic
forced the closure of all British theatres. Some companies adapted
by putting archive recordings of past productions online, others
by streaming new shows. And we take the opportunity to explore
other vintage productions preserved online. Until things return to
normal we review the experience of watching live theatre onscreen.
The
Fall
Original
Theatre Online Summer 2022
Drew
Hewitt's
drama is one of those plays that lie to you, leading you to think
they're about one thing and then abruptly becoming about something else.
That
technique can be intriguing and stimulating or it can be annoying, since
it negates the value of all the mental and emotional commitment you've
made to the play up to the reversal point.
And
if there are more than one rejections of all that has gone before –
well, in this case the playwright is fortunate that some absolutely
first-rate performances carry us over the rough spots.
Like
two other Original Theatre productions released online in the summer of
2022, The Fall was staged earlier this year in rehearsed readings – that
is, the actors carry scripts but have fully developed their
characterisations – and has been skilfully and sensitively recorded.
It
opens with a bit of disorientation, as the squabbling middle-age couple
played by Sara Stewart and Adrian Lukis seem to be overacting badly, as
if in a poor imitation of a brittle Noel Coward comedy, while the
writing shifts into a poor imitation of Edward Albee.
But
just as you begin to lose hope, the playwright pulls his first switch.
What we are watching is a play-within-the-play, a married couple of
actors performing in the Coward-Albee mashup they've written to star
themselves. (For those collecting footnotes, David Hare and Tom Stoppard
come to mind here.)
Hewitt's
story really begins when the actress has a breakdown in mid-performance
and then goes mute. She is brought to a female psychiatrist (Alex
Kingston) and the bulk of the play is then their sessions together.
The
shrink gets her to start talking, and eventually to explain why she
broke down. (Let's just say we're now in Pirandello country.)
The
woman's mental and spiritual crisis is explored in the discussions with
the psychiatrist and in her still-silent interactions with her husband,
and the central section of the play involves you mentally and
emotionally.
And
then the playwright throws it all out.
What
we've just spent an hour exploring is not what's really bothering the
woman – something else entirely is.
That
something else is very serious and deeply emotive, but you may well feel
fooled and cheated when everything you've been caring about is discarded
as irrelevant.
If
you stick with the play despite all the tricks played on you, it will be
because of the performances. Sara Stewart never lets us waver from
believing in the patient's pain, a particularly impressive
accomplishment when you realise she does much of it in silence.
Director
Charlotte Peters' camera stays on Stewart's eyes as they burn with anger
or anguish, while her spoken scenes make it clear there is a real person
hiding behind the brittle wit or stubborn silence.
Stewart
even carries a somewhat overwritten climactic speech about a dream that
would have stopped the play dead in less assured hands.
Alex Kingston is stuck with the near-cliché role of the all-wise psychiatrist, but individualises her enough to keep her believable.
And
Adrian Lukis provides solid support as the loving husband, particularly
in a speech describing how a change in one line reading can affect a
whole play (an idea that nicely resonates outward) and in a beautifully
understated topper to Stewart's dream story.
If The Fall doesn't lose you in one or another of its rejections of all that went before, it will hold you through the power of the direction and acting.
Gerald
Berkowitz
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