It will soon be the second birthday of the Bridge, a theatre with the best views in London, an auditorium still as sterile as an operating table, and a foyer somewhere between a Citigroup canteen and a deli in Neukölln. Still, I have seen some good plays here. Nancy Harris’s Two Ladies isn’t one of them.
Focusing on two presidential first ladies (American and French) and the ways in which they might subvert their husbands’ power is a good premise, if not original. Stuck in a conference room (designed effectively by Anna Fleischle) while a summit takes place, the two women bemoan their trophy status and the internal ructions in their marriages. The opening is promising, with Zrinka Cvitešić’s Sophia being bundled into the room in a blood-splattered skirt suit, surely a nod to Jackie Kennedy. But that might be this strange, Nicholas Hytner-directed play’s finest moment. Harris is an award-winning talent, and yet the research that has gone into this seems as though she flicked through a newspaper. The half-baked basing of Sophia on Melania Trump and her opposite number, Helen, on Brigitte Macron doesn’t work. So much of the plot detail is unrealistic, and the denouement is flat-out ridiculous.
There are positives. Zoë Wanamaker (as Helen) and Cvitešić both give fantastic performances, particularly a monologue by Cvitešić. Lorna Brown is impressive with the often cringeworthy material of an adviser. And there is the odd brilliant line : Helen explaining how she fell in love with her 16-year-old student: “I was 41, I was vulnerable!” But for a truly interesting take on this subject, might I recommend Carol Ann Duffy’s The World’s Wife?
• Two Ladies is at the Bridge theatre, London, until 26 October
