Oh Luvvies, this is one for you. Written only in 2009, Alan Bennett’s The
Habit of Art is an observational piece of theatre on the process of theatre
making. In effect it is metadrama where actors (in this case well-known actors)
play actors playing characters in rehearsal running through a play.
Sharp
characterisations of insecure actors, bossy stage managers and sensitive, cerebral
writers are recognisable caricatures of the theatre world. Playwright, Neil
(Robert Mountford) is the author of the play Caliban’s Day and we meet up in a theatrical rehearsal room.
Designed by Adrian Linford, the room is typical of a draughty, dusty rehearsal
space cluttered with bits of furniture that can be moved to create an impromptu
set. It could be anywhere, literally setting the stage for the premise that art
comes from habit.
The idea begins with the scenario that four actors appear for rehearsal
of a play, but two others have not turned up. The stage manager, Kay (Veronica
Roberts) and Assistant Stage Manager, George (Alexandra Guelff), who are
incidentally the only two females in the cast, stand in for the absent actors.
Kay also runs the rehearsal as the director has also failed to turn up. The
writer, however, has turned up only to find there have been changes to his
script. The actors run through the play challenging the writing and searching
for meaning while Neil, the writer despairs, ‘Why can’t the actors just say the
words.’
The internal play is set in 1972 in Oxford College rooms where a time-obsessed
grumpy, elderly poet WH Auden, wonderfully portrayed by Matthew Kelly, is
living. After some preamble silliness about a rent boy, interviewer and
biographer Humphrey Carter (John Wark) is dismissed and becomes the narrator. An
equally ageing composer Benjamin Britten (David Yelland) arrives and they meet for
the first time in thirty years. The remaining cast sit around the sides
‘helpfully’ interjecting but mostly just observing the rehearsal of the play
that examines the history of the two. Like us the actors become the audience. The
encounter between the two great literary and musical giants (and gay icons) of
the 20th Century makes up most of the entire play which begs the question
for many, why not just perform Caliban’s
Day?
While Matthew
Kelly and David Yelland are brilliant as Auden and Britten, the play fails to
excite anything more than an historical interest in two old men in conversation,
with an awkward tension between them, musing on sex (there is a liberal amount
of ‘dick’ humour), art, fame and death that is the habit of art. It’s all a bit
too intellectual to translate to live theatre. Perhaps this is the point that
Bennett is trying to make. Theatre continually taking itself so seriously that
it fails to excite an audience.
Matthew
Kelly playing Auden carried the most lines and kept up a good pace. The double roles
by the rest of the cast were also played well, clearly distinguishing between their
dual characters. It may have been more interesting spending time with the actors
and the rehearsal process but that wouldn’t have provided the opportunity to
create two great roles for the lead actors. Something that helps draw the
crowds to this touring production. There was some good humour that was
appreciated by the mainly over 50s audience but not enough to save this rather
dull play. The Liverpool Playhouse Theatre audience intellectuals will no doubt
enjoy The Habit of Art (pun intended) and the star performances but it is
unlikely to court mainstream theatregoers. As I said strictly one for the
‘Luvvies’.
Reviewer - Barbara Sherlock
on - 23/10/18
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