Waste

by Harley Granville Barker

seen at the National Theatre (Lyttleton) on 27 February

This production is directed by Roger Michell and designed by Hildegard Bechtler, and features Charles Edwards as Henry Trebell, Sylvestra le Touzel as Frances Trebell and Olivia Williams as Amy O'Connell.

The play, banned on its initial publication in 1907, was revised in the 1920s though its subject matter was still controversial. This production uses the later version of the play, in which, among other things, the character of Amy O'Connell is portrayed as more active in creating the brief but catastrophic liaison between herself and Henry Trebell. The consequences - an unwanted child and a fatal illegal abortion - lead to all manner of waste: the child and mother dead, the promising career of the father in ruins (causing his own suicide), the political establishment seen to be immovably patrician, self-serving and misogynistic. But, crucially, everyone is complicit and no-one spotless.

Amy, separated from her Catholic husband but with no prospect of divorce, has evidently been fascinated by Henry for some time when they meet at a weekend houseparty organised by a Tory grandee. Henry is an independent MP who is considering an alliance with the Tory government in order to see through the House his plan for the disestablishment of the Church of England. On the Sunday evening of the houseparty he and Amy finally encounter one another in private. The scene is not at all romantic.  Both seem determined on having a physical relationship though without much understanding of one another or even perhaps of their own motives. The lack of connection in this more intimate encounter reflects the social awkwardness of the houseparty as a whole, as shown to us in the opening scene of the ladies taking coffee while the gentlemen smoke and talk politics elsewhere in the house. Here also Amy is seen as something of a misfit, but equally there are unspoken tensions between the other ladies present - the hostess, her mother, and Henry's sister Frances.

In the next act, Henry's passionate advocacy of his pet project, and his innate political idealism, are both radiantly on display in Charles Edward's portrayal of Henry in charismatic mode as he speaks with his doctor and with a sceptical and deeply Anglican Tory lord whose support he needs and somewhat surprisingly wins. The scene between Henry and Lord Cantilupe - a creepily powerful Gerrard McArthur - is mesmerising. But between these two encounters, Amy visits him to announce that she is pregnant but unwilling to have the child. At this personal crisis Henry is completely at a loss, his headlong style utterly inappropriate for dealing with Amy's distress, anger, resentment and panic (movingly portrayed by Olivia Williams). Not only has he put  their brief liaison out of his mind, he has no capacity to understand Amy's point of view. Amy herself, throwing out wild disclaimers of any maternal impulse at one moment, and hinting that she might be prepared to reconsider if marriage were possible (or likely) at another, shows us a brittle and superficially self-confident person cracking under the strain of facing an unwanted future. The choices before her are grim, and, feeling bereft of any support, she opts for desperate measures which destroy her.

The second half of the play shows the political machine in operation to exclude Henry in the face of ensuing scandal, even though at the same time the politicians exact a promise from Amy's husband that he will not incriminate Henry at the inquest. Henry does himself no favours by intruding on these negotiations to meet the widower and to claim that his personal life has no bearing on the way he should be treated as a politician. At this point Lord Cantilupe withdraws his support in moral indignation, and after Henry has left the Prime Minister writes to dispense with his services. In the final act, Henry is seen to be unravelling, and despite the warmly affectionate attempts of his sister to sustain him, he takes his own life. The survivors of this mess are distraught but at the same time barely able to express their emotions directly, except for Henry's clerk Walter, a young man brought to tears by the waste of it all.

The play is full of themes and ideas, perhaps too full of contenders for our attention. The awfulness of the prospect of unwanted pregnancy for a fiercely unmaternal woman is to the fore at one point; the sheer energy created by political idealism and enthusiasm is revealed at another. Then there is the unedifying spectacle of the political elite protecting itself and blaming the woman - or the man - for personal disgrace and social indiscretion. There is a parvenu industrialist Tory whom nobody likes but everyone must accommodate - he could have been the central character of a different play (perhaps one by Shaw). Altogether, with so much going on, it is quite bracing to be confronted with a whole spectrum of ideas and problems. It is a salutary contrast to the tendency of more recent plays to concentrate on personal crises without exploring their ramifications in public life, or else to satirise public life at the expense of breathing real personality into the characters.

Here, the production moves confidently amongst all these registers. The sets make use of great walls which either slide across the open stage to allow actors to position themselves in readiness for a scene, or else rise from floor level to obscure the stage while furniture is moved about. This gives a compelling fluidity and abstraction to the proceedings, rather than embedding them in a solidly period decor, so that even though the characters express themselves and are dressed in a manner suitable to the 1920s, their predicaments and habits of mind are still easily grasped as relevant to our own times.