Love wins the day over dodgy dialogue!
Orpheus Descending (Menier Chocolate Factory) Verdict: Passion takes the biscuit ★★★✩✩
A FIERY love story, dressed up against its will as lofty Greek drama. Forget Orpheus, forget Hades: this is Valentine, descending into a dusty country shop in the Deep South.
If you strip back the clanging poetry, the plot of Tennessee Williams’s play begins like a dirty movie. A middle- aged woman who runs a small shop is trapped by her unexciting, increasingly decrepit husband when who should roll in but a handsome stranger, looking for employment, a place to hang his guitar, and a chance to practise his neck massages.
Of course, there’s more emotional grit than that. Tamara Harvey’s strange, steamy production is a curious beast. The taut, gently raunchy encounters between Lady (a brilliantly brash Hattie Morahan) and new boy Val (Seth Numrich on the suavest, coolest form) are where it really sings. Her pain for a lost father and fury at the dying husband who caused it crackles brightly in this small underground car park of a theatre. His strange charm is incredibly effective. And the baggage they bring to their desperate relationship plays really well. The problem lies elsewhere. The dialogue tries to be classical but often forgets to be human. This, mixed with slightly melodramatic performances from the rest of the cast, makes for a tricky watch.
The ensemble of nattering townsfolk are too brash (unfortunately including the talented Jemima Rooper, as the almost-vagrant goodtime girl Carol they’re all trying to ostracise).
Among the many shades of soupy Southern accents I also heard far too many English vowels dripping through.
But in the final dramatic moments, this is rescued. Our couple’s hearts are racing brilliantly, we’re invested, the ensemble becomes less of a twee mush, and with some excellent edits to the text, when guns are finally fired, you could hear nothing but gasps and the shivering of gin and tonic ice cubes.
The best of a poor play is resurrected here. Tune out the honky-tonk poetry, and focus instead on the ferocious sexual drama.