Theatre / Reviews
Review: Small Hotel, Theatre Royal Bath – ‘Some great performances, but a strange piece’
Erm…. Okay, here’s what I think I have just seen:
Larry, a fading TV chat show host, is stabbed at a cashpoint and, as he lies bleeding, elements of his life flash before him.
A one-eyed Angel of Death guides him through the unresolved relationships that clearly still cause him pain: his drunken, sharp-tongued mother, a talented woman who has made it big in Hollywood 20 years after the end of their unwise age-gap relationship; his brother, Richard, who is scared of the world and whose lengthy phone calls remind him of his own fragility.
Ralph Fiennes as Larry and Rosalind Eleazar as Marianne
He hallucinates an excruciating career-ending interview, imagines his mother preferring his brother and threatening to overdose on morphine. Then he dies and his brother and ex-girlfriend strike up a friendship in their grief.
Or… Larry is chasing Marianne – who has implausibly rekindled her love for him, and who has stormed out of a meeting with his mother because she was rude and kept talking about suicide. He is then stabbed, and dies. And his brother and ex-girlfriend connect in grief as they talk about how much they loved him.
Francesca Annis as Athena and Ralph Fiennes as Larry
I’m not sure it matters which.
All the while, there is tap-dancing, crackly black and white footage of 1930s Vaudeville acts, a haunting refrain of ‘small hotel’ and some Haiku poetry. On a revolve.
Ralph Fiennes as Larry and Rachel Tucker as Ava
The reason for all this is genuinely baffling, despite some classy production values and great performances. Francesca Annis as the mother is stunningly vicious, and Rosalind Eleazar is vulnerably powerful as a damaged woman who has been used by arrogant older men once too often.
Fiennes plays both brothers: as Larry he is awkward, uncomfortable in his skin and not at all convincing as a household TV name, while as Richard, he is heartbreakingly loveable.
Rachel Tucker as Ava
It says something, although I’m not sure what, that at least three people I overheard as we left the theatre did not realise the two characters were played by the same man.
This is a strange piece, which inhabits a liminal space in which angry exchanges, discomfort and recrimination take up more time than rose-tinted memories and end-of-life comfort. Fiennes commissioned the script and worked with writer Rebecca Lenkiewicz in its early drafts. I hope that when his number is up he doesn’t torture himself this much.
Small Hotel is at Theatre Royal Bath on October 3-18 at 7.30pm with additional 2.30pm matinee shows on Thursday and Saturday (no shows on Sunday). Check www.theatreroyal.org.uk for ticket availability.
All photos: Marc Brenner
Read next:
Our newsletters emailed directly to you
