Between August and December 1944, Terence Rattigan radically revised his play Less Than Kind, retitling it Love in Idleness. The standard charge is that Rattigan diluted the earlier version’s politics at the behest of his stars, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. Trevor Nunn has now had the bright idea of synthesising the two texts and the result, while undeniably fascinating, also exposes Rattigan’s curiously divided self.
Emotionally, the play still works in that it explores a classic dilemma: a mother torn between her lover and her son. Olivia Brown, a vivacious widow, is besotted by Sir John Fletcher, a rich businessman who, as a key member of Churchill’s war cabinet, is unable to divorce his wife. But when Olivia’s leftwing teenage son, Michael, returns from abroad he is filled with a passionate Oedipal fury.
With great skill, Rattigan tiptoes elegantly between the absurdity and anguish of the situation. Michael’s determination to adopt a Hamlet pose, even to the extent of putting on an antic disposition, is ruefully comic. At the same time Olivia, caught between duty and desire, prefigures the more complex and tragic Hester in The Deep Blue Sea.
It is the play’s politics that bring out Rattigan’s contradictions. By using the final act of Less Than Kind, Nunn strives to maintain a balance between Michael’s high-minded idealism and Sir John’s ruthless realism. As in his revival of Flare Path, Nunn also makes extensive use of newsreel footage, highlighting not just wartime deprivation but the optimism induced by the Beveridge report, with its vision of social security.
But the more strongly we are reminded of the historical context, the more contrived Rattigan’s resolution of the play’s dilemma appears. He clearly has some sympathy with Michael. At the same time, one gasps at the breathtaking cynicism with which Rattigan suggests that a young Laski-quoting socialist can easily be bought off.
Whatever the play’s flaws, the acting is a delight. Eve Best as Olivia perfectly captures the character’s mix of sexual passion and social snobbery: one particular moment, in which she greets a distinctly unwanted guest with a radiantly beaming smile, is the funniest thing in the evening. Yet Best, running her fingers through her son’s tousled hair, also suggests this is a woman driven by maternal devotion. Edward Bluemel is a sulkily handsome and suitably moody Michael, who looks as if he is ready to play the prince of Denmark. Anthony Head as Sir John artfully combines the iron will of the millionaire businessman with the deviousness of the determined lover. Helen George also makes a sharp impression as his capricious wife.
In all it’s a good evening that, in stitching together two different versions of the same play, shows Rattigan’s capacity to mix genres and combine laughter and pain. But not even Rattigan’s formal ingenuity can disguise his political ambivalence or the fact that, as a progressive enthralled by high society, he sought to run with the socialist hare while riding with the conservative hounds.
• At Menier Chocolate Factory, London, until 29 April. Box office: 020-7378 1713.
