Evening Standard from London, Greater London, England • 15

EVENING STANDARD THURSDAY 2 OCTOBER 1997 1 5 by Nicholas de Jongh The Invention of Love Cottesloe National Theatre BY NIGR ROSSER THE BRITISH au pair accused of murdering a nine-month-old baby in America has taken a lie detector test to try to prove she is innocent Louise Woodward 19 admitted shaking little Matthew Eappen at his Boston home but only to revive him as he started to black out Prosecutors in the trial which begins on Monday claim she smashed skull with a force comparable to dropping him from a second floor window because he would not stop crying However speaking for the first time about her role in the case Miss Woodward told a lie detector test expert that Matthew had been crying during his bath but calmed down after she put him in his crib look normal I room He cry and he make a sound I know if he was breathing panicked because he just responding in any way and I shook him I was calling his name I was yelling to him He doing Miss Woodward who faces 30 years in jail denied striking or injuring Matthew in any way The lie detector test concluded she was 95 per cent certain to be telling the truth Her lawyers claim the baby may have suffered from a genetic condition making him prone to injury and that his head injuries were sustained up to 48 hours earlier when Miss Woodward had a weekend off They have already cast severe doubt over crucial medical evidence against her think he had changed colour and I think he was focusing I panicked I tried to breathe for him I heard gurgling in his throat but his chest rose I check for a pulse did mouth-to-mouth After panicking a little I walked around with him He was on my shoulder I could hear him breathe I thought just had a shock He might just be traumatised by it you know Miss Woodward from Elton Cheshire then sang to the boy son of Boston couple Sunni! and Deborah Eappen but said his eyes were unfocused he was turning blue and his mouth was open know what was wrong with him He cried since I had left the Stoppard brings to life the sadness of being a lonely poet FROM the bare bones of the dry life of AE Housman Professor of Latin at Cambridge who wrote three slim volumes of poems and mostly remained alone at home Sir Tom Stoppard has been inspired to write the most emotionally power-fill and enthralling play of his career Never before has he written with such exciting eloquence though far too many protracted and repetitive demonstrations of what a dabhand at textual criticism Housman was It is Sir Richard Eyre's swan-song production as National Theatre director and he makes of it a gorgeous finale The Invention of Love is a magical memory play which meanders like an elaborate dream It begins at the close of life in 1936 fleetingly recalls its sad essence in satirical vignettes comic pastiche and riveting glimpses of Housman in poignant encounters with his undergraduate self Sir Richard with a clever company of actors Anthony dreamy film projections Peter atmospheric lights and Dominic eerie shimmering musical score brings the written elements to bright theatrical life Stoppard has always tended to view the ways of the world as puzzling messages in code which he tries to unscramble His new play in the same exploratory mode sets out to explain the enigma of Housman whose double life as author of the Shropshire Lad poems and as a Professor of Latin was remarkable for its wretchedness Having fallen at Oxford for the wholly heterosexual Moses Jackson what drove the homosexual Housman to spend the rest of a life he hated alone and in semiseclusion pining for this phantom lover? way of finding answers to the question is to capture the spirit of the age and suggest what damaging impact it had on Housman His dreamlike construction also works illuminating wonders As the older Housman a superlative John Wood with his air of baffled sadness quivering mouth and displays of heartfelt pedantry stands waiting for the boat to the classical Greek underworld dead then John Wood: The actor is diy and jocular as Housman he observes in jocular dry tones But hardly has he set out on his after-death voyage than another boat with Paul Rhys as his happy undergraduate self and Robert Portal's phlegmatic Jackson comes drifting by What pain is conveyed in cry as his young self passes by Stoppard satirises the Oxford University Establishment of the 1890s when aesthete was a codeword for screaming queen as a troupe of gossiping old trouble makers of very doubtful persuasions Undercover homosexuality and Oscar Wilde are on hand Robin scholarly Walter Pater in his top hat and yellow hat plays croquet with John Balliol Master before scandal catches him out The political world basks in cynicism with journalists and MPs making money or reputation from stances of outraged morality PAUL Rhys with his remarkable gift for emotionally distraught characters powerfully makes young Housman the model of feverish energy excitement and vulnerability Rhys rather overprojects some of these emotions But by the time Housman meets Michael brilliant preening Wilde clear his path is irreversibly set Wilde argues all erotic love is founded on romantic make-belief and Housman in dread of being sexually found out has created his own masochistic dream-world of male comrades scholarship his one true pleasure a tremendous scaring vision of a sacrificed life Ratings: adequate good very good outstanding poor.