Review: Waste, Almeida Theatre

Friday, 14 November 2008

Review: Waste, Almeida Theatre

Waste, a play by Harley Granville Barker, is another one of those plays that was banned when first written, in this case in 1907. Directed by actor Samuel West at the Almeida theatre, this version uses the revised 1926 text to great effect with as strong an ensemble you will find in London this autumn.

The story follows Henry Trebell an independent MP with a lifelong dream of wanting to disestablish the Church of England and build colleges on the land and has formed part of a Tory push to get the bill passed as law with their anticipated arrival in government. However, his personal life is in disarray as a casual affair with a married woman who ends up pregnant comes to light and threatens to ruin everything that he holds dear.

The way in which the hypocrisy of the political classes is exposed means that much of this play, although set in the 20s, rings true today. The politicking and skullduggery that goes on as the politicians try to manage the fallout from the scandal and turn it as much their advantage as possible is fascinating and there’s a pleasure to be gained from eavesdropping on such a conversation that would never normally come to light. But the play also deals with private lives and the harrowing truths that hold Trebell and his spinster in their hollow emotional shells

As one has come to expect from the Almeida, the cast is sensational right down the list. Will Keen’s tragic Trebell conveys the real sense of ‘waste’ in a life that has consistently placed duty over emotion with a fiercely internalised performance; Phoebe Nicholl is sensational as the constantly forgiving yet equally emotionally repressed sister; Nancy Carroll’s performance as the discarded lover is stunning but frequently difficult to watch with the rawness of the emotion on display and Hugh Ross, Richard Cordery and Peter Eyre all provide wonderfully odious variations on a theme of smarmy politicians.

Yet despite how well-acted it was, it was hard to define how I actually felt about it for a long time. It is one of those occasions where I think I admired it more than loved it as it did prove hard-going. Clearly it is emotionally punishing, but I did find it physically tough as I just wanted it to get on with it at times. This was possibly because I wasn’t feeling 100% but I did feel that Granville Barker tries to cover too much in here and Sam West’s directing could have dealt with it: there were moments that could have been cut, dialogue tightened up and the same result achieved. That said it is very good, if a little bum-numbing and be prepared to work hard!

Waste Review at The Almeida Theatre

Waste
Venue: Almeida Theatre
Where: West End
Date Reviewed: 3 October 2008

Nancy Carroll in Waste

You could say that Waste by Harley Granville Barker is exactly the sort of play the National Theatre should be doing, and Samuel West’s magisterial, superbly cast revival at the Almeida – the first in London since Peter Hall’s Old Vic version in 1997 – has the unmistakeable clamour of an Edwardian political classic pressing all the right contemporary buttons.
The story is that of a high flying lawyer and impassioned independent MP, Henry Trebell, striking a deal with a Tory government on a bill to disestablish the Church of England while falling hopelessly in love with the wife of an interned Sinn Fein activist. The bill will allow churches to be turned over to education; Trebell’s dalliance threatens Home Rule policy. Echoes here of Gladstone’s cabinet and the siren Kitty O’Shea.
West uses a synthesis of the banned 1907 version (abortion was the issue, not Home Rule, apparently) and the 1926 re-write first seen on the stage ten years later and revived by John Barton for the RSC in 1985 with Daniel Massey as Trebell and Judi Dench as Amy O’Connell.
The roles are now sulphurously occupied by Will Keen, bald and blazing, and the ever lustrous Nancy Carroll, the former obsessively dedicated to his cause until catastrophically ensnared by the latter’s sinuous charms, a vision of red-haired Irish loveliness in a modern hemline and a cloche hat.
Bruce Alexander played Amy’s incarcerated husband Justin O’Connell in that RSC production and pops up here as a political trimmer, Gilbert Wedgewood, while O’Connell himself, appearing after the tragedy in the abortion clinic, is played with a fine, banked-down fury by Patrick Drury.
Even though the detail of the third act smoking room carve-up is hard to follow, the mechanics are rivetingly exposed by Hugh Ross as the smoothly calculating PM, Peter Eyre as a vulpine ecclesiastical fixer in the Lords and Michael Thomas as George Farrant, a key sounding board in the cabinet. The air crackles with wit and mischief from the moment we meet the Tory ladies, led by Helen Lindsay’s sedate old dowager, gathered round the grand piano in the Farrants’ country house.
Jessica Turner is the determined hostess and Phoebe Nicholls the sandpaper dry Frances Trebell, performances that go a long way to explain why Trebell himself hasn’t kissed a woman in ten years. The production, handsomely designed by Peter McKintosh and beautifully lit by Guy Hoare, is full of such deepening touches, the overall atmosphere, political and personal, completely electrifying.
- Michael Coveney