Once a popular West End hit, TS Eliot’s 1949 play now looks a bit of a baroque relic in its attempt to explore spiritual issues in the framework of a drawing-room comedy. But, for all the high-toned references to Euripides’s Alcestis and the Orpheus and Eurydice legend, what really intrigues one is the sense that Eliot is using the play to exorcise his own personal demons.
Edward and Lavinia Chamberlayne are a couple who grate on each other’s nerves, have attachments elsewhere and finally settle, under the guidance of a mysterious mix of psychiatrist and guru, for a passionless coexistence. It is impossible not to hear, in their marital spats and Edward’s guilty remorse, echoes of Eliot’s own anguished relationship with his wife, Vivienne, who died in 1947.
In addition to exploring his private hell, Eliot suggests that the only alternative to the bleak materialism of the postwar world is some form of ecstatic sacrifice: my objection is not to the idea but to the fact that the ultimate crucifixion of Edward’s lover, Celia Coplestone, comes out of the blue.
I like the play best when it is satirising the self-absorption of fashionable society. My favourite moment comes when Edward says of his lover’s attempt at poetry that: “it is interesting if one is interested in Celia.” That line goes for little in Abbey Wright’s revival, which is clear, elegant and coherent, if a touch short on humour. One thing I missed in Hilton McRae’s authoritative performance as the shadowy fixer was the skittish little dance Alec Guinness used to do on his first exit.
But there is good work from Richard Dempsey and Helen Bradbury as the tormented Chamberlaynes, Marcia Warren and Christopher Ravenscroft as their eccentric guests and Chloe Pirrie as Celia, a potential martyr in Dior clothing.
• Print Room at the Coronet, London, until 10 October. Box office: 020-3642 6606.
