Ustinov Studio, Bath
A strong creative team featuring Lindsay Duncan and Hilton McRae cannot bring this dreary revival to life
August Strindberg’s 1900 drama of marital drudgery and torment has either not aged well or this production fails to hit the right note. Granted, it is a play with many notes – absurdist comedy mixed into its husband-and-wife battle which takes place on their 25th anniversary. It goes from prickling passive aggression to statements of hate, threats of divorce and a third party who, entering the fray, brings strains of gothicism and lurches towards melodrama.
Alice (Lindsay Duncan), a former actress whose marriage ended her career, and Edgar (Hilton McRae), an army captain who failed to climb the ranks, live out their days acrimoniously on a remote island. But in Mehmet Ergen’s production, the couple do not bring the savage comic timing nor the angry intensity needed to bring this story to life. Instead, they make stiff tonal switches, one minute as lovably curmudgeonly as George and Mildred, giving each the side eye, the next minute firing salvoes about death, hate and bad fate.
At the Ustinov Studio, Bath, until 4 June. Then at Oxford Playhouse, 7–12 June; Cambridge Arts theatre, 14–18 June; Royal & Derngate, Northampton, 21–23 June; and the Arcola, London, 28 June–30 July.
