The Smile Of Her - Review

Marylebone Theatre, London

****

Written by Christine Lahti

Directed by Mêlisa Annis

Christine Lahti

Watching the effortless, magnetic solo performance of Christine Lahti — a Golden Globe-winning actor and an Academy Award-winning director — one cannot help but feel privileged. Yet knowing that this is Lahti’s autobiographical play, that invites the audience into the most intimate corners of her life, transforms that feeling into something deeper: a sense of gratitude at having been entrusted with her story.

The play The Smile of Her, which is based on Lahti’s 2018 book of autobiographical essays True Stories from an Unreliable Eyewitness, begins in her childhood home in 1950s Michigan. In the immaculate white living room, represented by a white sofa covered in plastic at the centre of the stage, Lahti remarks with a bitter laugh that her family did everything there but ‘living’. Every Christmas, her parents and their six children posed there for a professional family portrait. Yet behind the smiles of the picture-perfect family captured in those photographs lay dark secrets, pain and frustration, which Lahti confronts with sincerity and humour.

As a young girl, Lahti first noticed the cracks in her mother’s famous, almost unfading smile. Through them, she begins to uncover disturbing truths about misogyny and patriarchy, forcing her to find her own way in a world not yet ready to recognise her as equal or worthy, let alone accommodate her ambitions to become an actress. 

The child version of Lahti is played by the talented Isabella Ford. In her stage debut, Ford masters the role, first as Lahti’s adorable younger self and later as her inner child (this role is also played by Jesamine-Bleu Gibbs). The interaction between Lahti and Ford is harmonious and well supported by the staging. 

In this London revival of the play, director Mêlisa Annis and designer Sarah Beaton create a minimalist yet effective stage setting, managing to maintain an intimacy with the audience while uplifting the story in its epic moments.

The evening is a rollercoaster of emotions and revelations, Lahti’s play more than anything proving to be a love letter to her mother — and to all the other women who fought, each in her own way, on the same battlefield. 

As much as she presents her compelling life story, Lahti also strikes us with a disturbing and uncomfortable truth: women’s liberties are fragile, recent, and remain far from perfect or secure. Only one generation separates Lahti from her mother, but their experiences as women were at once profoundly different and shockingly similar. Lahti’s message is clear: feminism remains not only relevant, but necessary.

Reviewed by Florit Shoihet

Runs until 29 August

Photo credit: Mark Senior

Bird Grove - Review

Hampstead Theatre, London

****

Written by Alexi Kaye Campbell

Directed by Anna Ledwich

Owen Teale and Elizabeth Dulau

Bird Grove is a well crafted and beautifully performed study on fathers, daughters and the conventions of the 19th century.

The title of the play is drawn from the Warwickshire home shared by Mary Ann Evans and her widowed father Robert. Mary Ann (played by Elizabeth Dulau) was an educated woman, as her father (played here by Owen Teale) was a traditionalist who, as his daughter’s challenges to his faith and his lifestyle become more apparent, finds such evolutionary thinking increasingly hard to bear. What makes this story even more remarkable is that Mary Ann was to go on and change her name to George Eliot, becoming one of the greatest forces in English literature of her time.

Dulau and Teale are magnificent protagonists. As Mary Ann rails against the stifling and oppressive chauvinism of the era, Dulau imbues her with a measured yet powerful presence. She commands our respect and as the evening evolves, our sympathy too, director Anna Ledwich deftly helming the narrative of Mary Ann's complex arc.

Teale is a man whose stature and character is chiselled from the granite of humanity. There are hints of both Lear and Tevye in his temperament and he commands his scenes with passion and pride, his love for his daughter matched only by his inability to recognise her wishes and desires. A man trapped by the strictures of both church and convention, his struggles are recognisable and, in many ways, timeless.

A handful of supporting characters enhance the narrative, with Jonnie Broadbent’s take on Horace Garfield, a would-be suitor to Mary Ann, proving a first-half cameo that comes close to stealing scenes, such is his comic excellence.

Alexi Kaye Campbell’s writing is, for the most part, delightful. His dialogues are deft, even if some of the plot’s advancement (notably the epilogue) is at times a little expositional and clunky. Sarah Beaton's set and Matt Haskin's lighting design create an elegant suggestion of the titular country house.

Fine new writing, Bird Grove makes for a night of provocative, stimulating theatre.

Runs until 21st March

Photo credit: Johan Persson

Muted - Review

The Bunker, London

***

Music and Lyrics by Tim Prottey-Jones and Tori Allen-Martin

Book by Sarah Henley

Directed by Jamie Jackson

Tori Allen-Martin

It’s a brave ask that has any composers title their show Muted - a name that by its very nature suppresses aural beauty. In this new musical that has been a long time in development, we meet Michael a former rock singer, who has been left mute following the traumatic death of his mother. Lauren is his childhood sweetheart with a secret and the show seeks to explore the unlocking of Michael from his emotional devastation.

David Leopold plays the Michael of today, mute but expressive throughout while Edd Campbell Bird is the Teenage (and sweetly voiced) Michael, with both men convincing in challenging roles.

Tori Allen-Martin, who to her credit both co-writes and co-produces the show, is Lauren singing with a vocal magnificence that brings a rich texture to her character's pain. Likewise, Helen Hobson's Amanda, Michael's mum, is another excellent turn reminding us of Hobson's remarkable body of work.

The imagination behind the story is impressive and with a striking denouement too, but as an evening's entertainment, there's something missing. Back in the 1970s The Who visited a similar scenario of a boy profoundly damaged by trauma in their rock opera Tommy. That show's songs however were massive and more than filled the storyline's ambitious canvas. While Muted's onstage emotions are clearly huge, its songs fail to swoop and soar, leaving one witnessing what seems more like the staged version of a ballad-heavy concept album rather than a full blown musical. For reasons not clearly explained, Sarah Beaton has designed the whole affair around a sunken paddling pool. Whilst this no doubt has thematic intentions of deep significance, ultimately the shallow waters prove a distraction. Good actors should be able to show their emotions through voice and body, rather than petulant splashing. 

It is early days for the show and some of the sound needs balancing - likewise the lighting is at times too introspective, reducing the cast to barely visible silhouettes. Musically though Adam Gerber's band put in a fine shift throughout, including some gorgeous guitar work from Gus Isidore.

New writing is to be encouraged and for that, bravo to the trio of writers. But as a fully fleshed out musical, Muted has yet to find its voice.

Runs until 7th January 2017

Photo credit: Savannah Photographic