Spoonface Steinberg
New Ambassadors Theatre, London
***
Plucked unheralded out of the ether, it must have been tremendous. But the problem with Lee Hall's much-lauded, award-winning 1997 radio play about an autistic child is that it now has to compete with its own legend; and, although it is beautifully acted by Kathryn Hunter, as a stage piece it leaves one uncomfortably aware of its tactical manipulation of our emotions.
You can see why the piece was instantly popular: in an age of doubt and uncertainty it offers affirmation. Spoonface, so called because of her round features, is not only autistic but also the victim of a broken marriage and destined to an early, cancerous death.
Yet, whatever her disabilities, she possesses uncanny numerical skill, is spiritually resilient and responds instinctively to the beauty of operatic arias. She is not only aware that she is a special child, she even confronts her impending death with stoical grace and with a belief, rarely expressed in modern drama, in the glory of God.
As an imaginative exploration of the world of autism, Hall's play is impressive. But, coming to it totally fresh, I was also acutely conscious of the way it plays on our emotions.
Spoonface's love of opera is touching, but there is something suspiciously neat about the way her experience constantly cues in an appropriate song.
Likewise, when Spoonface's Jewish doctor recalls how his grandmother sang to the inmates of the concentration camps on the way to the gas-chambers, one is struck by the almost too easy, Life Is Beautiful symbolism of light erupting in the midst of darkness.
Courage and hope are not qualities one should despise in drama; but when one compares Hall's play with the rigorous austerity of Beckett, one is bound to say its spiritual victories don't seem especially hard-won.
If it is worth seeing, it is largely for the performance of Kathryn Hunter, who increasingly seems the most versatile, shape-shifting actress on the British stage. Only last year she astonished us as the reckless visionary artist in Barker's Scenes from an Execution. Now she totally inhabits the spirit of an autistic child to whom inanimate objects take on a magical quality. Hunter exactly captures the experience of a child forced to confront loss, separation and death without losing her sense of innocent, baffled wonderment.
Marcello Magni and Annie Castledine stage the piece intelligently in a curving blue-and-white walled Liz Cooke set that suggests an imprisoning nursery. But, although the performance could not easily be bettered, theatre is like an x-ray machine that exposes the rose-tinted quality lurking inside Hall's valiant, unfashionable optimism.
Until January 22
Box office: 0171-836 6111
