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Review: Grace Pervades, Theatre Royal Bath – ‘Great performances, but an underwhelming script’
Grace Pervades is David Hare’s new play about Victorian theatrical titans, Henry Irving and Ellen Terry. She was an unmarried mother for whom acting came second to her loved ones; he was a husband and father, for whom Theatre (very capital T) was an obsession.
They elevated British theatre and paved the way for a national theatre. They had a deep relationship, which didn’t satisfy Terry. Both had children, who – for better or worse – ended up sewn into Theatre’s web.
It is delicious to see Ralph Fiennes as Irving flirt with the audience through the fourth wall. It’s a tickling treat to see his comic side. Thank the gods for it, because Hare’s Henry Irving is a scratchy wool jumper of a character; Fiennes’ gentle dusting of self-knowing wit saves the audience like a protective silk undershirt.
is needed now More than ever
Ralph Fiennes and Miranda Raison in Grace Pervades
It is also a joy to watch Miranda Raison play the remarkable Ellen Terry, her loving warmth a contrast to the often unreachable Irving. It’s testimony to her talent that she remains utterly watchable: Ellen Terry here is almost entirely a foil for Irving – ironic, given her outspoken life. Hare defines by her lover, her disappointment and her children. She is ‘Beckoning Love’; he is ‘Resistant Work’.
Their performances are excellent. The set/video, costumes, music/sound are of the highest quality (Bob Crowley/Akhila Krishnan, Fotini Dimou, Paul Englishby/Elizabeth Purnell). The ensemble is big and underused. But the script. Oh, David Hare.
Members of the Grace Pervades Company
Hare just seems to give us a chapter of theatrical history. I’ve tried to find more, but I can’t. Drama is often hampered by the stories of true lives, and here, there’s no sense of drama at all. Audiences crave something to win, to lose, uncertainty about what rich characters will choose. We long for payoffs so right yet so surprising, that the final solution – the riddle beaten! – will please us, comic or tragic.
But Hare delivers a plodding history lesson, largely given retrospectively by Terry’s children. It’s heavy with unbelievably clunky dollops of exposition which are badly disguised as chatter from Terry’s adoring biographer. References to the suffragettes, Vita Sackville-West, Nazism, Stanislavsky and Peter Brook go nowhere; they’re so redundant and clunky that I winced.
Grace Pervades Company
Yes, this is a bitter-sweet story. Yes, it asks us why people get so obsessed with the things they do to the detriment of human relationships – but it equally could be about angling or Stevenage FC.
I truly wonder what drove Hare to write this; did he feel genuine excitement? It doesn’t show. His almost-themes of ‘realism’, ‘purity’ and ‘can theatre help society?’ are just left on the waiter’s trolley, decreasingly enticing, and never served up.
Helena Lymbery, Ruby Ashbourne Serkis, Kathryn Wilder in Grace Pervades
I repeat, it is delicious and a joy to see Fiennes and Raison in action. Their performances are excellent. I feel for Ruby Ashbourne Serkis (Terry’s daughter Edy Craig) and Jordan Metcalfe (her son, Teddy Gordon Craig) – their parts are sketchy although big, and they end up as little more than the Chorus. Without them and the rest of the company, Hare would have been forced to create drama – although we’d lose 11 from the company, and a massive but funny Russian Lear set.
If you can easily afford it, go for these great performances, and a nice enough and enjoyable play with some rewarding moments of comedy. But sadly, although I wanted to, I did not love it.
Grace Pervades is at Theatre Royal Bath on June 27-July 19 at 7.30pm, with additional 2.30pm matinee shows on selected Saturdays. Tickets are available at www.theatreroyal.org.uk.
All photos: Marc Brenner
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