The Woman Before
Royal Court, London SW1
When a girlfriend he hasn't seen for 24 years arrives at Frank's door, claiming they are still in love, he's bemused. His wife (a cool Saskia Reeves) is understandably appalled, and we're all set for an absurdist marital comedy: Pinter's Betrayal with a better wardrobe.
But it soon becomes clear that Romy (Helen Baxendale) is badly damaged, fixated on a teenage love affair Frank can scarcely remember (the monstrous egotism of first love is echoed in the subplot between Frank's son and his girlfriend). And yet nothing is what it seems in Roland Schimmelpfennig's play (in a translation by David Tushingham). Romy, who first commands our sympathy, appears increasingly manipulative, while Frank and Claudia are genuinely vulnerable.
Romy seduces the son, and tempts Frank to run away with her. But then in a final scene of Greek violence, bodies are defiled and scorched. Are we supposed to take this literally? Is it a metaphor? Or another middle-aged husband getting his comeuppance?
But then the penny drops. Any post-war German playwright knows all about apocalyptic guilt. The dispossessed family, the luggage in the hall, the locked rooms containing horrors... it all has a dreamlike inevitability.
Performances in Richard Wilson's production are uniformly excellent, but it's Baxendale in her green coat who will blow the memory of Cold Feet's Rachel out of the water.
