Materially, the two thirty something couples in Lanford Wilson’s 1970’s domestic drama seem to have it all. But behind closed suburban doors, there’s deep-rooted discontent which no amount of success can obliterate.
Wilson depicts two middleclass marriages in a state of breakdown, the happy past a nostalgic memory, the future an emotional desert of disaffection.
Hotshot Chicago lawyer Alex (a restless Jason Butler Harner) is contemplating a move into politics, but can hardly bear the presence of his needy, emotionally fragile spouse Gabrielle (Charlotte Emmerson). Carl, (a former quarterback and his best mate from college) has made a small fortune in property development but chooses to turn a blind eye to his own wife Mary’s ongoing affair with his accountant.
The two couples time-share the same brown-hued living room, disappearing through doors leading to bathrooms, bedrooms or the outside world of work or clandestine meetings. Every so often they address the audience directly. Neither dramatic conceit increases one’s sympathy for these unhappy characters.
The writing is sometimes astute, often indulgent. But the performances in Simon Curtis’s focussed production hold the attention with Geraldine Somerville’s soignée Mary distractedly composed in her relationship with Jason O’Mara Carl, the husband of whom, looking back, she wistfully observes ‘I don’t actually think that I loved him then. But I love him then now.’
until 27 March.
Wilson depicts two middleclass marriages in a state of breakdown, the happy past a nostalgic memory, the future an emotional desert of disaffection.
Hotshot Chicago lawyer Alex (a restless Jason Butler Harner) is contemplating a move into politics, but can hardly bear the presence of his needy, emotionally fragile spouse Gabrielle (Charlotte Emmerson). Carl, (a former quarterback and his best mate from college) has made a small fortune in property development but chooses to turn a blind eye to his own wife Mary’s ongoing affair with his accountant.
The two couples time-share the same brown-hued living room, disappearing through doors leading to bathrooms, bedrooms or the outside world of work or clandestine meetings. Every so often they address the audience directly. Neither dramatic conceit increases one’s sympathy for these unhappy characters.
The writing is sometimes astute, often indulgent. But the performances in Simon Curtis’s focussed production hold the attention with Geraldine Somerville’s soignée Mary distractedly composed in her relationship with Jason O’Mara Carl, the husband of whom, looking back, she wistfully observes ‘I don’t actually think that I loved him then. But I love him then now.’
until 27 March.
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