Stars explained: * A production of no real merit
with failings in all areas. ** A production showing evidence of not
enough time or effort, or even talent, and which never breathes any real
life into the piece – or a show lumbered with a terrible script. *** A
good enjoyable show which might have some small flaws but has largely
achieved what it set out to do.**** An excellent show which shows a
great deal of work and stage craft with no noticeable or major
flaws.***** A four star show which has found that extra bit of magic
which lifts theatre to another plane. Half stars fall between the ratings
Jaz Davison as Gertrude Stein, left, Hannah
Roche as Bernadette, Pippa Olliver as Alice B Toklas and Maggie Lane as
Agatha Christie. Pictures: Emily White
Little Wars
Highbury Theatre Centre
*****
The finest production seen at Highbury
for some time takes us back to 17 June, 1940. We are somewhere in the
French Alps as literary giant Gertrude Stein and her muse and lesbian
lover Alice B. Toklas await their equally celebrated guests for a dinner
party at their home, a party which was short on food, as in none, but
heavy on drinks, as in a lot.
The guests were Lillian Hellman, Stein’s nemesis,
the American playwright and political activist who was to later be a
vocal opponent of McCarthyism; the writer, poet and acerbic theatre
critic Dorothy Parker; and, the only non-American among them, the
queen of crime herself, Agatha Christie.
There is no evidence or even hint the meeting
ever took place outside the confines of the mind of the American
playwright Steven Carl McCasland, but he laces the script with
historically accurate references and dialogue which captures what was
known of each character in their words and attitudes. The meeting might
have been fictional but the conversation gave us the essence of the
characters involved.
Added to the mix is Mary, a code name, her real
name was Muriel Gardiner, who had arrived at Stein’s home a day early.
The person was right but the time was wrong. She was an American
psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who had been living in Nazi dominated
Austria using her wealth and position to provide forged documents, cash
and escape to Jews, anti-fascists and dissidents.
After the Nazis annexed Austria she
returned to America in 1939 where she stayed, later claiming, acrimoniously, that she was
portrayed as the Julia in Hellman’s autobiographical memoir Pentimento, a Julia still
collecting cash and organising escapes during the war.
Tina Williams as Lillian Hellman being
berated by Jaz Davison's Gertrude Stein with Amy White's Muriel Gardiner
behind
Then there is Bernadette, the . . . let’s call
her the maid. Bernadette is the only truly fictional character, yet she
is, perhaps, the most real. She is the Everyman character, representing
every victim of the rise of nationalism, populism, expansionism, fascism
. . . call it what you will in the troubled times now around us.
Jaz Davison is an absolute delight as Stein,
bolshy, unreasonable, argumentative, aggressive and at times vulnerable
but always in control while Pippa Olliver is a revelation as Toklas. We
have seen Olliver shine in comedy roles but here she becomes Toklas, a
far more complex character, the dutiful hostess, devoted to Stein,
acting as her protector.
She defends her, keeping emotions in check if
proceedings start to get out of hand, acts as peacemaker and at times
gatekeeper, ensuring Stein is always at the centre of things. There is
also a hint of resentment that she is Stein’s intellectual equal yet is
often seen as playing second fiddle to her partner. It is a wonderful
performance.
Lorna Rose’s Parker you suspect was sponsored by
Gordon’s gin. It is perhaps no surprise that she suffered with
alcoholism throughout her life along with depression and a turbulent
personal life as well as being on McCarthy’s blacklist. Rose gives us
that wicked wit and cutting asides that were her hallmark as well as
regular declarations it was time for another drink.
Hanna Roche as Bernadette serving Agatha
Christie with Lorna Rose, left, as Dorothy Parker, Alice B Toklas and
Muriel Gardiner behind
Hellman appeared to be arrogant and aloof and
although there is no documentary evidence she and Stein clashed, or even
met, the pair would hardly have been besties and Tina Williams gives us
a Hellman who fairly bristles at the barbs from Stein, a Hellman who is
serious, no quips or asides, and who has principles you suspect are
immovable.
It was chalk and cheese. Stein held some
conservative views even expressing some admiration for Marshal Pétain,
who would become the leader of Vichy France, while Hellman was a champion of the left and
socialist causes. She stood up during the McCarthy hearings after
refusing to name anyone defying her interogators with her famous quote:
"I cannot and will not
cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions."
Christie is an outlier in all this. The only one
of the group who was neither Jewish nor of Jewish origin, although none
of the group, including Christie, was particularly religious. Maggie
Lane gives us a Christie not so much out of her depth, more out of her
comfort zone. She is a writer of thrillers, of murder mysteries, of
facts, of suspects, victims and killers. While the rest talk and
discuss, Lane’s Christie asks . . . the instinctive nosiness of the
thriller writer.
As the drinks flow and the evening progresses, egos
subside and conversation mellows from confrontational to confessional.
Parker talks of the men in her troubled life and
her $30 backstreet abortion in her 20s, Toklas talks of her absolute
love for the flawed Stein, while the often hostile Stein softens with
her own romantic thoughts. Christie talks about her first philandering
husband and finding him with his mistress which led to that famous 11
day disappearance, her just getting away turning into a media circus.
And Hellman? She married a theatrical agent,
Arthur Kober, when she was 21, they lived apart much of the time and
divorced seven years later when she had an affair with thriller writer
Dashiell Hammett. She tells of a rather sad, unfulfilled life.
Her most famous work is the play The Children’s
Hour from 1934, a tale of an angry girl who hates her girl’s boarding
school and who tells her grandmother the two head teachers are having a
lesbian affair merely to avoid having to go back. It is a lie, and exposed as a
lie but still destroys the lives of the teachers. It was a play reviewed by
Parker and referenced by the genuine lesbian couple Stein and Toklas,
with Stein first condemning and then reflecting upon it.
Mary, now revealed as Muriel, is a matter of fact
observer in the hands of Amy White. She talks about the dangers of
smuggling, the constant fear of being exposed or captured and what
happened to those who were. She engages in an argument with Hellman
about her rescues with Hellman asking what was the point if only a few
were saved, and Muriel arguing that a few was better than none.
Then there is Hannah Roche as young Jewish
Bernadette – the universal victim. A pin would not even have dared to
drop in the silence as matter of factly, without emotion, without
inflection, she related her story. It
was 1023 days ago . . . days ticked off one by one, hour by hour in
searing memory on the darkest wall
of her mind. She had been rescued and taken in by Stein and Toklas.
And the date, 17 June, 1940? It is the date
Marshal Pétain surrendered to the Nazis and the devastated Stein and
more pragmatic Toklas now lived in Nazi controlled Vichy France, a place
no longer safe for Jews or lesbians, which
meant the promise Stein and Toklas made to keep Bernadette safe, could no longer
be kept.
The play is full of intellectual debate and
themes once feminist which are now universal. We see the clashes of ego
and vulnerability, with plenty of humour mixed with the fear and
significance of war and the moral dilemmas it poses.
It sounds a bit wordy and heavy going but it
never is, this is skilled storytelling. Each character is given time
and space to develop and have their say, each having their own time in
the limelight.
The literary guests don't seem to like each
other, they argue and bicker, Stein even throwing a drink at one point.
It all adds to the tension, building slowly, with its
echoes in the world we now live in with the growth of populist,
nationalist movements around Europe and across the ocean, which calls to
mind the old adage that those who forget the past are condemned to
relive it.
It is beautifully acted holding interest from
beginning to end in the intimate space of the studio and proves that at
times the only difference between amateur and professional theatre
is that amateurs don’t get paid.
Incidentally, the production, sensitively
and deftly directed by Maura Judges, got the seal of approval from the playwright
Steven Carl McCasland in New York, who watched the dress rehearsal live over
Zoom.
The production sets a remarkably high bar for the rest of the Highbury season to match and runs to 15-03-25
