The Independent from London, Greater London, England • 47

THE INDEPENDENT TABLOID FRIDAY REVIEWS 19- THEATRE Heartbreak Almeida, London on't Standard's you mindlessness just Hot of love the Tickets the Evening chirpy guide? This was the section that predicted, of Richard Eyre's King Lear, "It should provide a suitably doomy contrast to the irresistible feel-funky factor of his Guys and Dolls." And the other day it was flogging the new Almeida production of Heartbreak House with a similar euphoric stupidity: "David Hare takes a break from writing the seminal plays of the century to make his directorial debut at this Islington venue, with George Bernard Shaw's characteristically biting slant on the idle rich." I treasure the idea of Hare switching off his word-processor on completion of yet another massively influential masterpiece and tootling over to the Almeida for some light relief with a lesser dramatist. Nothing, of course, could be further from Hare's own perception of the matter. As the programme note and this lucid, eloquently acted production bring home, it's Heartbreak House that is seminal "the century's original state-of-England a genre to which Hare has made several extremely distinguished contributions. Weirdly anticipatory, too, of the absurdism of Ionesco and of aspects of Brecht and Pirandello, the play kicks off in what looks like familiar Chekhovian territory. As in The Cherry Orchard, a cultured, leisured society here a set of Bloomsbury bohemians in a country house during the First World War is shown drifting towards its demise.

But Shaw pushes the material to House uncomfortable extremes: the apocalyptic calculatedly jars with the zanily playful. When Trevor Nunn directed the last London revival, the proceedings began to the strains of the "Liebestod" from Tristan, already insisting on the death wish that is exposed in the exultant reactions to the Zeppelin raid at the end. Hare's aim is to bring the sense of wasted passion and despair that lie under the surface of a play it would be wrong to regard as merely clever and cerebral. A rich thread of feeling is triumphantly provided by the superb performance of Emma Fielding as Ellie Dunn, the young girl whose unsentimental education during a night at the house is the play's throughline. Fielding has always had the gift of bringing a passionate radiance to intellectual convictions (how one would love to see her play Shakespeare's Isabella) and here she lends shining emotional truth to every stage of the character's somewhat rapid journey from romantic naivety, through the tough pragmatism of renouncing love for the money of the man who ruined her father, to a mystical marriage (itself undercut) with Shotover, the 88-year-old rumfuelled captain of this symbolic ship of state.

Playing the Lear-like Shotover, Richard Griffiths (who must have been the bulkiest sea dog in naval history) comes across as neither old nor dangerously cracked enough: the reasonin-madness has too much reason and not enough madness. As the daughters, Penelope Wilton and Patricia Hodge give delicious performances. The former Breaking up: Richard Griffiths plays unlikely paramour to Emma Fielding's Ellie Dunn Photo: Ivan Kyncl is all vague benevolent bohemianism, her comic penchant for coming on the throaty seductress not disguising the sad fact that the true love of her life is her wayward husband; the latter is a sleek monster of hypocritical propriety who breaks down when her father accuses her of having no heart to break. It's pure joy to hear the imperious placidity with which Hodge can invest a line like "A good deal of my hair is quite A good deal of this Heartbreak House is quite first-rate and it's so well paced that, for once, you aren't wishing the climactic air raid would come half an hour sooner. To 11 Oct.

Booking: 0171-359 4404 Paul Taylor THEATRE Gross Indecency Minetta Lane Theatre, New York City 0 his scar 1900, death Wilde aged 46. died approaches, As on the 30 more centenary November and of had against accused the Wilde Marquess (Spelling of of was "posing not Queensberry, as a who act, directly hustlers the to in the narrators Victorian audience. play In underwear, the working-class a second visual more biographies, more and more critical Queensberry's forte.) But when reminder that "the love that dare not works, more and more plays are being Queensberry's counsel threatened to speak its name" was not as Platonic as produced. Incidentally, has anybody produce male prostitutes as witnesses to Wilde made it out to be. thought of reviving Vera, which, as far as I Wilde's actual "gross Wilde's Wilde was betrayed by his wit and know, has not been performed since it counsel withdrew, Queensberry was arrogance, which led him to make a fatal failed in America in 1883? acquitted and, in a dramatic reversal, a slip.

Asked by Sir Edward Clarke, counsel A statue of Wilde is to be erected in warrant was issued for Wilde's arrest. for the prosecution, whether he had ever the West End. Two plays about him, one Although the authorities gave him the kissed a certain young man, he glibly of them by David Hare, will open shortly. opportunity to escape, not issuing the replied, "Oh, dear no. He was a peculiarly The Stephen Fry film is on its way.

warrant until the last train for Paris had plain boy. He was, unfortunately, Meanwhile, in New York there is Gross left, Wilde chose to stay and face the extremely ugly. I pitied him for it." Clarke Indecency, one of the season's biggest charge. In the ensuing trial, the jury could was quick to move in for the kill. Trapped, successes, which chronicles Wilde's three not make up their minds, but a third trial unnerved, Wilde became inarticulate.

trials in 1895. The author is Moises ended in Wilde's conviction and a In the lead, Michael Emerson bears no Kaufman, who also directs. sentence of two years' hard labour. physical resemblance to Wilde The script, sharp, intelligent and Kaufman's production has a physical whatsoever. The characterisation is all in dramatic, draws on the original trial simplicity.

A nine-man ensemble faces the the language, attitude, vocal mannerisms transcripts, as well as letters, newspapers, audience in two rows. In the back row, and affectation. Emerson's Wilde slim, plays, novels, poetry, epigrams and either side of a lectern (which stands for sensitive, frail is what Queensberry said biographies written by Wilde and his the dock), sit the defence and prosecution. Wilde was: a poser, and smug with it, contemporaries, including Sir Edward In the front row, at a long table, surrounded behaving in court as if he were acting in Clarke, Frank Harris, Lord Alfred by books and papers, sit four narrators. one of his plays and paying the price.

Douglas and George Bernard Shaw. They play a variety of roles lawyers, Let's hope, among all the Wilde-mania, Wilde's troubles began when he arranged journalists, auctioneers, Queen Victoria, etc. that this production gets a London run. for a charge of criminal libel to be brought For the most part, the cast speaks Robert Tanitch heltenham Festival of LITERATURE in association THE INDEPENDENT 10th 19th October 1997 Welcome to a world of words with ten days of events in in celebration of books and their authors. Top names appearing include: Martin Amis Richard Baker Louis de Alan Clark Jonathan Dimbleby John Hegley Ian Hislop James Penelope Keith Hanif Kureishi Ian McEwan Anthony Minghella Edna O'Brien Michael Palin Will Self Rick Stein Rose Tremain To receive a free brochure please call the 24 hour Brochure Hotline Tel: 01242 237377 To book tickets ring the Box Office Tel: 01242 227979.