The theatre, one character proclaims in Alexi Kaye Campbell’s new play, is “democracy’s twin”. Its aim is to show you a different perspective. It should stir up emotions and change your point of view.
This is a proclamation that becomes a cudgel. Sunset at the Villa Thalia is not likely to change anyone’s point of view. Not least because it is so stuffed with declarations – about politics and about personalities which demand to be taken at face value. Campbell, the child of a Greek father and English mother, was an infant when the colonels took over in Greece. He sets his play on Skiathos both in the year of the coup and some nine years later. An English couple, cajoled and bludgeoned by an over-bearing American, buy a cottage at a knockdown price, and effectively disinherit the Greek owners. The political metaphor is not hard to decipher, and it is rammed home further by references to the toppling of the Allende regime in Chile. Yet the vital opportunity to make this resonate with present-day Greece is missed. Which is the more surprising as seven years ago in his fine play, The Pride, Campbell subtly used an earlier era to light up the present.
Simon Godwin’s production is spry, with a ditzy Elizabeth McGovern, a furrowed, threatening Ben Miles and an authentic earnest Pippa Nixon; Sam Crane can’t do much with the wet part of a writer, typing on the terrace. Thalia is the muse of comedy and she has her moments here. But she could have done with a helping hand from her lesser-known sisters, the muse of showing not telling and the muse of current affairs.
