Man and Boy - Review

National Theatre, London

****

Written by Terence Rattigan

Directed by Anthony Lau

Ben Daniels and Malcolm Sinclair

Anthony Lau’s take on Terence Rattigan’s intriguing Man and Boy is a deliciously stylised slice of Manhattan in the 1930s.

Played out on a green baize and beneath an oppressively interrogatory lighting rig, the moments of the play’s high drama are delivered from table-tops. Rattigan’s world is one of high-stakes deals, with Georgia Lowe’s set and costume design creating an atmosphere that's driven by malevolent corruption and greed.

The plot hinges around the complex relationship between Romanian tycoon Gregor Antonescu and his sometime estranged son Basil Anthony - played by Ben Daniels and Laurie Kynaston respectively. 

Daniels’s Antonescu is a monster of corporate greed and manipulation - almost a Jeffrey Epstein of his time - with a compelling performance that commands both attention and contempt. Kynaston by contrast presents a complex creation of a profound fragility.

But in this melodramatic wonderland of neo-noir, it emerges that almost everyone is loathsome. Nick Fletcher turns in a great performance as Sven, Antonescu’s long-serving lieutenant. Malcolm Sinclair is equally magnificent as Mark Herries, a millionaire American industrialist who is as motivated as much by his homosexual cravings as he is driven for success on Wall Street. And then there’s Isabella Laughland as Countess Antonescu - a trophy blonde of a wife whose two-dimensionality is divine.

A fun script, cleverly performed, in a production that is fuelled by America’s era of Art Deco. As a glorious glimpse of human vileness, it’s quite possibly the finest show in town.

Runs until 14th March

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

Long Day's Journey Into Night - Review

Wyndhams Theatre, London

*****

Written by Eugene O'Neill

Directed by Jeremy Herrin

Brian Cox

Brian Cox heads an impressive cast in Eugene O’Neill’s grim take on early twentieth-century America. Widely considered the finest of O’Neill’s works and drawn from the writer’s autobiographical experiences, Cox plays James Tyson, a miserly washed-up actor in his sixties and the patriarch of a family wracked with alcoholism, morphine addiction and consumption. 

Cox may take the starriest billing but his fellow performers are equally magnificent. Patricia Clarkson is his wife Mary, with Daryl McCormack playing elder son James Jnr. and Laurie Kynaston as Tyson’s youngest child Edmund.

In a 3hr 20min show, each of the 4 characters is given ample room by O’Neill to explore and display the depths of their own personal tragedies. All of the quartet are profoundly flawed, with the evening proving a stunning combination of outstanding prose delivered to perfection. Cox may be the unlikeable linchpin of his family, but even he garners a modicum of sympathy as the full extent of his and his family’s misfortunes are laid bare. Clarkson and her take on Mary’s surrender to opiates offers perhaps the evening’s most poignant interpretation.

Set over the course of one long day, in the confines of the Tyson house located in a remote coastal Hicksville, Jeremy Herrin’s direction is masterful, enhanced by Lizzie Clachan’s simply designed set and Jack Knowles’ ingeniously effective lighting.

It is rare for such a magnum opus of a play to be performed by such a gifted company. The evening may be uncomfortable and unhappy, but it is also unmissable.

Booking until 8th June

Photo credit: Johan Persson