First seen at the National in 1988, David Hare's play is one of the most durable works of its decade. It captures the simmering rage and imaginative poverty that was part of the Thatcherite psyche. But there is something mysterious at the play's centre which Guy Retallack's perfectly capable revival does little to resolve.
On one level, the play is perfectly clear. Two sisters, the virtuous Isobel and the pragmatic Marion, are left with a problem on the death of their father: what to do with their boozy stepmother, Katherine. Marion, a rising junior minister, has the perfect solution - to persuade Isobel to give Katherine a job in her small design firm while getting her husband, President of Christians in Business, to incorporate it. The result is disastrous.
As a satire on Thatcherism, Hare's play is richly effective. Not only does expansion kill a thriving cottage industry, but also Isobel's relationship with her partner, Irwin. Through Marion, Hare captures the busyness, anger and pathos of the Leaderene and her clones. When Marion confesses: "I can't interpret what people feel,"I am reminded of Hugo Young's description in One Of Us of Mrs T's Grantham upbringing, where civic duty prevailed over imaginative joy.
But the hard character to fathom is Isobel, whose idealistic goodness and honourable attachment to her father bring out the worst in everyone. It may be no accident that Hare wrote his play shortly after directing King Lear, and that Isobel is a contemporary Cordelia. But, in theatrical terms, it's hard to tell whether to admire Isobel's integrity or resent the irrationality that leads her to favour her stepmother over her lover; and, although Jenny Seagrove does a good job of conveying Isobel's infuriating saintliness, she still leaves us perplexed. Belinda Lang has an easier task as the crisply forceful Marion and there is a particularly fine performance from Peter Egan as her Christian husband who breaks into a knowing smile when Isobel claims that even Jesus might have balked at the offer she is made after being asset- stripped.
But, while Hare's play captures superbly the spirit of the 80s, it leaves you unsure whether Isobel is a priggish pain or a symbol of transcendent virtue.
· Until February 21. Box office: 0870 890 1107.
