A German Life

by Christopher Hampton

seen at the Bridge Theatre on 8 April 2019

Maggie Smith plays Brunhilde Pomsel in this dramatic monologue directed by Jonathan Kent and designed by Anna Fleischle. It is 'drawn from the life and testimony' of Brunhilde Pomsel and based on a film of the same name, constructed from 30 hours of interviews with her and released in 2016.

An elderly lady in a bland flat reminisces about her life - Pomsel had just turned 106 when she died in 2017. At first there are some ripples of knowing laughter in the audience, expecting perhaps another Maggie Smith performance of an eccentric woman with a wandering mind. But this is no elderly lady in a van causing havoc in the life of Alan Bennett. On the contrary, this is someone determined to remember what she can, and to speak frankly with courteous apologies when she gets sidetracked or absently loses her thread. Her story soon commands rapt attention, and the laughter when it comes is in response to barbed wit, or to uncomfortable observations which may sometimes be too near the bone.

The Son

by Florian Zeller

seen at the Kiln Theatre on 13 March 2019

Michael Longhurst directs Laurie Kynaston as the teenage Nicolas, Amanda Abbingdon as his mother Anne, John Light as his father Pierre, Amaka Okafor as his stepmother Sofia, Martin Turner as a doctor and Oseloka Obi as a nurse in Christpoher Hampton's transaltion of Florian Zeller's nw play, seen as part of a triptych with The Father (reviewed in October 2015) and The Mother (not seen).

The Kiln has a totally exposed stage the width of its auditorium, so upon entering the audience sees immediately a plain space with panelled white walls (somehow looking French; designed by Lizzie Clachan), a black upholstered sofa in the middle, a small writing desk and chair to one side, and a large suspended grey bag on the other side. Eventually Nicolas appears and begins to write obsessively one the wall panel immediately above the writing desk; or else he paces round the room.

The Height of the Storm

by Florian Zeller

seen at Wyndhams Theatre on 18 October 2018

Jonathan Kent directs Jonathan Pryce as André and Eileen Atkins as Madeleine, with Amanda Drew and Anna Madeley as their daughters Anne and Elise in Zeller's new play, in which he again addresses themes of love, loss, memory and grief. The translation is by Christopher Hampton , and the set is designed by Anthony Ward - each in their own way excellent.

In an ageing writer's country house (or at least, a house outside Paris), in which shelves overloaded with books to an impossible height dominate several visible walls, Anne is trying to gain her father's attention, but he seems lost in a reverie staring out through the kitchen windows to the garden beyond. We soon conclude that he is recently widowed and possibly succumbing to dementia - there is talk of resolving 'the situation' and realising that new arrangements must be made.

The Lie

by Florian Zeller

seen at the Menier Chocolate Factory on 29 September 2017

Lindsay Ponsner directs Christopher Hampton's version of Zeller's new play with Samantha Bond as Alice, Tony Gardner as Paul, Alexandra Gilbreath as Laurence and Alexander Hanson as Michel.

Anna Fleischle has designed a stylish French apartment's living room for a very stylish and very French play about the thorny issues of lying, being honest, being tactful and being deceitful, set around Alice's disquiet at hosting her husband's friend Michel and his wife in the evening after by chance seeing Michel kissing another woman in the street during the afternoon. Paul argues that neither Michel nor Laurence should be confronted - it is Michel's business and not theirs to interfere - but this raises large questions about honesty amongst friends and in a marriage, with spiralling and unforeseen consequences for all concerned.

Les Liaisons Dangereuses

by Christopher Hampton

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 30 January 2016

This revival of the play, based on the epistolary novel by Choderlos de Laclos, is directed by Josie Rourke and designed by Tom Scutt. It features Janet McTeer as la Marquise de Merteuil and Dominic West as le Comte de Valmont, with Elaine Cassidy as Madame de Tourvel, Edward Holcroft as le Chevalier de Danceny and Una Stubbs as Madame de Rosemonde, Morfydd Clark as Cécile de Volanges and Adjoa Andoh as Madame de Volanges.

In late eighteenth-century but pre-Revolutionary France the Marquise and the Comte,once lovers but now sexual adventurers, engage in various plots of seduction to amuse themselves ; but the Marquise is playing for higher stakes than the Comte, who (as is perhaps the way with over-confident men) has under-estimated the woman whom he had thought of as an equal. The Comte at first unwillingly fulfils the Marquise's proposal that he seduce an innocent young girl (Cécile de Volonges), while at the same time he finds that the virtuous Madame de Tourvel stirs deeper feelings in him than he bargained for. In turn Madame de Tourvel succumbs to passion, but they are both destroyed by the Marquise's resentment.

The Father

by Florian Zeller translated by Christopher Hampton

seen at Wyndhams Theatre on 7 October 2015

The play is directed by James Macdonald and is designed by Miriam Buether. It stars Kenneth Cranham as Andre, an 80-year-old retired engineer, and Claire Skinner as Anne, his daughter. Kirsty Oswald plays Laura, a care worker, and Nicholas Gleaves plays Pierre, Anne's partner.

The subject is the onset of dementia, and Zeller has achieved the remarkable feat of presenting the situation through the confusion of Andre's mind. It appears that he is in his own flat being visited by his daughter after an altercation with a carer. However, our understanding is soon destabilised by the appearance of two other characters who contradict Anne's statements, and then by Anne's own assertion that Andre has in fact moved to her flat. The techniques of theatrical trickery have been used to disconcerting effect in illuminating the crippling uncertainties of dementia as it may be experienced by a sufferer.