Friday 4 August 2017

Theatre Review: Apologia (Trafalgar Studios)



Following on from his popular 2008 Royal Court debut with the dual-timeline gay drama The Pride, Alexi Kaye Campbell’s second play Apologia was produced at the Bush in 2009. It’s one of a number of plays of its period (Mike Bartlett’s Love Love Love and Stephen Beresford’s The Last of Haussmans spring to mind) that attempted to explore the legacy of 1960s radicalism by focusing on the generational conflict between the now-ageing radicals (often represented by a strident maternal figure) and their offspring in the present day. While these works differed a little bit in their attitudes, it’s notable that most offered a judgemental and unsympathetic take on the ’60s generation, flagging up the hypocrisies and compromises of the baby boomers in a way that seemed designed to flatter younger audiences eager to view themselves as victims of the older generation’s selfishness.

Somewhat tweaked, Kaye Campbell’s play now receives its first major revival at Trafalgar Studios in a production by Jamie Lloyd (who directed The Pride in 2013) that casts Stockard Channing as the ’60s representative. Kristin Miller is a leading art historian who was a firebrand of the radical Left in her youth. She’s just published a memoir, in which her two sons, Peter and Simon, have not been mentioned.  The dramatic device used to bring her and said sons into collision is, predictably enough, a dinner party, at which Peter, a banker, arrives with his American girlfriend Trudi, to be joined by Simon’s girlfriend, Claire, an ambitious actress currently starring in “a serialised drama that happens to follow the trajectories of various people's lives". Simon himself, a depressed failed novelist, is late to the party, but also along for the bumpy ride is Kristin’s bawdy gay pal Hugh.

It’s the most conventional of dramatic set-ups, then, and one that’s not entirely persuasive. We’re meant to see how  Kristin’s “neglect” of her sons has led them to life choices that directly oppose hers, but details such as Peter’s having met Trudi at a prayer meeting (to his mother’s horror)  never completely convince.  Kaye Campbell certainly tries for fair-mindedness in his presentation of the characters but sometimes accomplishes this by foul means, briskly scuttling two characters off-stage so that a third can deliver a sympathetic speech that’s meant to fundamentally change our view of the heroine.

Reining in his tendency for pushy touches, Lloyd’s production treats the play in an unfussy manner, with Soutra Gilmour supplying an attractive, picture frame-bordered kitchen set. The production has an interesting rhythm, its broad comic tone giving way to a quiet, tender (if overextended) mother/son scene at the mid-point. And the essential mediocrity of the material is partially compensated for by a couple of fantastic performances.

Joseph Millson doubles efficiently though not scintillatingly as the resentful sons, while Desmond Barrit gets laughs for fruitily playing Hugh as the ever-quipping quintessence of camp. (Nonetheless, the character is a stereotype, with no suggestions of interior life; it’s a jarring touch when we learn that he and Kristin are still out there attending protest marches.)
 
Channing is absolutely terrific, though, underplaying effectively to avoid making Kristin a mere monster; with stillness and economy, she suggests the doubts and disappointments lurking beneath the character’s implacable facade. Kristin’s trajectory - from icy intelligence to inevitable emotional breakdown - is highly problematic but Channing makes that arc a whole lot less gruesome than it might be, scrupulously avoiding sentimentality.

The production’s other great performance comes from Laura Carmichael (so memorable in Lloyd’s thrilling production of The Maids last year) who finds the goodness and integrity in Trudi’s comically perky politeness.  Freema Agyeman  is less assured, but gives some gusto to Claire’s run-ins with Kristin. “It’s not a soap,” goes the running gag about Claire’s TV show. Kaye Campbell’s play is, at heart, a sitcom. Its conflicts frequently feel contrived, but the cast sometimes succeed in bringing a few sparks of truth to the table.


Runs until 18th November. 

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