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Adultery is a question of belief The End of the Affair Grange Players *** ANYONE who has ever read Graham Greene
will know that he could never be described as a pacy writer. He doesn’t
do holiday read page turners with a new drama to grip you every couple
of pages. He builds characters slowly stripping away their
lives and thoughts like the layers of an onion and The End of the Affair
was one of the novels where Greene, a Roman Catholic, explored catholic
themes of belief and man’s relationship with God and whether there was
anything to believe at all. This adaptation by Rupert Goold and Catherine
Butler is not the easiest to stage. Greene’s novel had little in the way
of action or pace and there are so many scenes in the adaptation, many
very short, that the production becomes bitty, not allowing any natural
theatrical rhythm to build - a little too much stop-start.
Deborah Kerr , Van Johnson, Sir John Mills and Peter Cushing and again in 1999 with Julianne Moore, Ralph Fiennes and Stephen Rea. The production is also a tad on the long side at
two and three quarter hours including the interval and a little
judicious pruning might help to create a little more pace – for example
did we need a mini VE Day party on stage? Wouldn’t the strains of songs
and street parties have served the same purpose more elegantly? That is not to say that the production does not
have merit. The set is imaginative and the acting strong and
believable. The story is a simple one. Maurice Bendix is a
rising writer who in 1939, was having an affair with Sarah Miles, the
wife of Whitehall mandarin Henry Miles. Maurice is caught in an explosion in the blitz
and Sarah makes a promise to God that she will never see him again if he
is allowed to live. Maurice then walks in with no more damage than a cut
lip to create an ex-lover who is then wracked by guilt, doubts and
beliefs for the rest of her life.
Adam Woodward gives us an intense Maurice who is
still in love, and lust, with Sarah and wants the affair to start again
after a chance meeting with Henry on Clapham Common where they both
live. Initially he wants little more than a one night stand so he can
break it off rather than being the rejected party but we soon realise
that the affair runs much deeper than that. Woodward manages to keep up a rather clipped
1940’s accent without a flutter from beginning to end, which is no mean
feat in itself. David Weller gives a fine performance as Henry, a
man who gives boredom a bad name. Henry is dull in 10 foot high neon
capital letters. Even when he discovers the affair he struggles to raise
an objection. You could imagine that a double yolked egg is perhaps the
limit of excitement in his life. Liz Webster gives is a rather sensuous Liz who
you could well believe could stray from her Mogadon man of a husband to
the arms of a celebrity author. She is believable as a woman with no
faith but who has found a belief and we can feel her anguish, even if we
can’t understand her conflict, in coming to terms with her love for
Maurice and her promise to God. She has a couple of long speeches when
her emotions are raw and exposed for all to see. Incidentally every intimate moment between Sarah
and Maurice involves Sarah stripping to a mini-slip, suspenders and
nylon stockings – not that I am complaining, mind you, but I suspect
nylon and silk stockings would have been much harder to come by than
rising star writers throughout the war. After their meeting on the common Henry brings
Maurice back for a drink where he reveals he suspects Sarah is having an
affair and had considered using a private detective but decides against
it. Maurice employs the detective instead which takes us to the offices
of Mr Savage, played by Leslie Wilkes, which introduces us to his man
Albert Parkis, played with solid, working class deference and
respectability by Christopher Waters.
He in turn introduces us to Richard Smythe, “Smythe
with a y” played by Dan Payne, who is a humourless individual, living
with his sister, played by Jill Simkin, whose mission is to deny God to
anyone who will listen after being born with a birthmark on his cheek. There is a little confusion in some scenes as to
where we are in time whether it is now, 1946 in this case, or 1939, or
anywhere in between, not helped by Maurice wearing the same suit for all
seven years and Sarah having the same particular, easily removed costume
for whenever sex was in the air. The production is directed by Julie Lomas who has
cleverly divided the stage into three sections, all on a different level
to give us the Miles’s swish house in the middle, a clear area stage
left which gives us offices, restaurants, street parties, the common,
Smythe’s flat and even churches with the use of back projection to
set scenes. Stage right is where Maurice lives with bare
walls and bricks exposed and a shared telephone in rented rooms with a
landlady in the same house which seems a little incongruous with a
successful author who appears to have no financial worries – telling us
he eats in an up market restaurant three times a week or so - and has
had at least one book turned into a film. There are some interesting touches such as the
transclucent glass walls across the rear of the stage, very art deco,
which serve as entrance halls for the homes of the Smythe’s, Miles’s and
Maurice’s bedsit – the single bare light bulb seen dimly through the
frosted glass in Maurice’s rooms is a nice touch as is the entrance to
all properties being though a single, shinny, red door which somehow
gives a significance to every entrance.. Hopefully the production, with much to commend
it, will pick up a little speed and rhythm as the run progresses and a
couple of opening night sound and lighting wobbles will undoubtedly have
been ironed out by now. To 20-07-13. Roger Clarke |
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