Harley Granville Barker’s tremendous play has not had the best of luck. It was initially banned by the Lord Chamberlain in 1907 and the first night of this revival by a National Theatre that Barker did so much to inspire was marked by misfortune: a few minutes before the end, a spectator collapsed in the stalls and there was a prolonged hiatus while an ambulance was called. Eventually the play continued, but much of the momentum was lost.
It remains a remarkable play in its combination of sex, politics and religion. The action hinges on the determination of an independent MP, Henry Trebell, to bring in a bill to disestablish the Church of England and devote its wealth to education. But, shortly before he is due to join an incoming Tory government that will push the bill through, Trebell impregnates the wife of a former Irish republican. The result is fatal, both to the woman in question, Amy O’Connell, and to Trebell’s visionary dream.
Barker’s overriding theme is barrenness: above all, the barrenness of a life such as Trebell’s, in which ideals matter more than individuals. It’s a theme skilfully reflected in Roger Michell’s production by Hildegard Bechtler’s sets in which sleekly sliding panels reveal sterile interiors. But the big theme is also embodied in Charles Edwards’s superb performance as Trebell. When arguing the case for his bill and talking of the “hunger for knowledge”, Edwards’s eyes blaze with missionary zeal. Left alone with Amy, he resorts either to brusque cold-heartedness (“my time for lovemaking is limited”) or to a stumbling hesitancy. In Edwards’s hands, the play becomes the tragedy of a man who reserves his passion for principles rather than people.
Barker’s language may not have the Mozartian musicality of Shaw and his play takes time to get going. But, in addition to acute psychological understanding, he shows a laser-like eye for the hypocrisies and shifting alliances of political life. The great moment comes in the third act, when we see the future members of a Tory cabinet first trying to hush up a sexual scandal and then gradually disowning Trebell. Even if this production doesn’t efface memories of the last Almeida revival, there are sharply observant performances from Michael Elwyn as the manipulative Tory leader, Gerrard McArthur as a silky moralist and Louis Hilyer as a booming pragmatist. Barker’s point that women are victims of male power structures is also impeccably reinforced by Sylvestra Le Touzel as Trebell’s devoted sister and Olivia Williams as his abandoned mistress.
I noticed a few empty seats on the first night, but this is a play that deserves packed houses for its unsparing dissection of the ongoing English malaise.
- At the Lyttelton theatre, London, until 19 March. Box office: 020-7452 3000
