Tag Archives: Chuma Emembolu

What I Really Think of my Husband

★★★

Golden Goose Theatre

WHAT I REALLY THINK OF MY HUSBAND at the Golden Goose Theatre

★★★

“The play has the air of a work in progress, but the five strong cast give it substantial shape”

Despite his literary success as a novelist and a poet, Thomas Hardy was quite a shy personality who tried to keep a precarious control over what aspects of his life were to be divulged and what were not. Although his two marriages have gained public attention, not much is really known beyond the facts. Following Emma’s death (his first wife) he burnt a manuscript of hers entitled ‘What I Think of My Husband’, together with most of her diaries. When Hardy’s second wife, Florence, decided to write a ‘biography’ of him, he retained control by dictating to her virtually the whole of the manuscript.

Writer David Pinner (whose novel ‘Ritual’ inspired the cult film ‘The Wicker Man’) delves deeper with a new play “What I Really Think of My Husband”. Its premiere, at the intimate Golden Goose Theatre, comes without fanfare or frills. The play has the air of a work in progress, but the five strong cast give it substantial shape in Julia Stubbs’ slick and engaging presentation.

When we first meet Thomas Hardy (Edmund Dehn) he has recently published ‘Jude the Obscure’ which received a harsh reception from scandalised critics, and which his first wife, Emma (Laura Fitzpatrick), perceived as being based on their own marriage. Dehn and Fitzpatrick spar like Edward Albee’s George and Martha, surrounded by their imaginary menagerie of cats. The cats have filled the gaps in their childless marriage while the bickering has displaced the romance. Intercut are scenes of the couple in their youth (Andrew Crouch and Aliya Silverstone) as yet unaware of the ephemeral nature of infatuation. When his wife dies, Hardy marries his secretary Florence Dugdale (Isabella Inchbald) who sadly could never really escape the shadow of the first wife. Her aspirations of being the true muse were thwarted by Hardy’s love poetry forever being inspired with Emma in mind.

Pinner’s script has a lyrical flow, referencing Hardy’s poetry such as ‘The Dawn after the Dance’ and ‘The Dead Man Walking’ and lesser-known works as well. There is a Gothic touch, with traces of dark humour. But although he treats the material with care and a poetic sensitivity, the result is a little confusing. Not so much due to the chronological shifts in the narrative, more because of an over emphasis on an extra character, also called Florence, and also played by Inchbald. The first half of the piece is slightly dragged down by the story of Florence Henniker, a poet and novelist who collaborated with Hardy. Inchbald comes into her own as Florence Dugdale in the second act. As Hardy’s secretary she manages to shield herself from Emma’s prophetic warnings. But later, as Hardy’s wife, she has little armour against the ghostly challenges from beyond the grave.

Dehn gives an inspired performance as Hardy, striking the right note of being somewhat unaware of his own excruciating behaviour. Fitzpatrick skilfully avoids throwing Emma into the role of victim and instead elevates the character into lead role material. After all, it is supposed to be her story. Yet it is also billed as a ‘ghost story’ in its marketing, yet this much anticipated through-line doesn’t fully materialise. We want more of the supernatural to manifest itself rather than hover in the twilight zone of the play; and it feels like Pinner has missed a trick here.

They say that ‘behind every great man there is a great woman’. With Thomas Hardy there were two. At least. And a ghost thrown in for good measure. Pinner sheds light on these characters, but it is Stubbs’ production – and the performances – that really bring them to life.

 

WHAT I REALLY THINK OF MY HUSBAND at the Golden Goose Theatre

Reviewed on 24th November 2023

by Jonathan Evans

 


 
 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Strangers In Between | ★★★★ | September 2023

What I Really Think of my Husband

What I Really Think of my Husband

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Owners

Owners

★★★½

Jermyn Street Theatre

OWNERS at the Jermyn Street Theatre

★★★½

Owners

“The production is deceptively complex and skilfully carried off.”

“Turning you out? What an old-fashioned idea!” the power-hungry property developer Marion exclaims at one point in Owners. Of course, what the play sets out to prove is that it’s not an old-fashioned idea at all, but a painfully immediate one: both in 1972, when Caryl Churchill first wrote it, and now, in Stella Powell-Jones’ production at the Jermyn Street Theatre.

Owners is concerned with property: with having and being had. Clegg wants a son, wants a butcher’s shop, wants Marion, who wants power, who wants Alec, who wants — maybe nothing at all. As Marion ruthlessly develops her London properties, she sets her sights on the flat where Alec is living with his pregnant wife. She also sets her sights on their unborn child. Owners is a play about the need to possess, but it is also a play about the need to be possessed. As it unfolds, sinews of desire stretch and flex between the cast, as they separate and come together, tangled in ever darker threads.

The production is deceptively complex and skilfully carried off. The set, designed by Cat Fuller, is a stroke of genius, with a panorama of doors pressing claustrophobically in on the little family. Fuller uses the tiny space of the theatre’s stage to her advantage. Throughout the piece, everyone vies for exactly the same tiny patch of hotly contested real estate, as a series of hinges and compartments turn one flat into the next. It also means that, even when one person’s life is carefully hinged away, it is still ‘present’ on-stage. All these lives stack on top of each other in a suffocating palimpsest that is extremely effective.

What is initially identifiable as something almost in the vein of farce, grows mesmerizingly misshapen and grotesque as the play leads us down darker avenues. This is underscored by increasingly sinister interludes of music (Sasha Howe and Max Pappenheim) and lighting (Chuma Emembolu) during scene changes, before the lights come back up and we revert to the brightly lit family moment. The sense of something dark and inarticulate shadowing beneath the mundane works very well, especially as Owners gathers speed and becomes more confident in its own surreal cynicism. By the end, it eschews the comfortable escape-routes that something ultimately closer to farce might provide, and instead embraces a grim cannibalistic quality that makes for some beautiful moments of dialogue. Ryan Donaldson as Alec delivers a stunningly haunting hospital scene, and Laura Doddington is incredible as the bullish, smarting Marion (“be quick, be clean, be top, be best”), and a personal highlight.

While the themes are still strikingly relevant, the production shies away from what could be a more current exploration of them. The choice to maintain the 70s setting so distinctly through music and costume (Agata Odolczyk) is visually very effective, but also serves to buffer the play slightly, making it a more comfortable watch. When Clegg the butcher charges a customer just 20p for a pound of mince, a titter goes up from the audience: this is not our world, really, then, and we can breathe a sigh of relief. In the second act, however, when the grim surrealism is allowed more space to unfold, Owners does begin to bite more. Ultimately, though frustratingly lacking in urgency, this is a well-executed piece that leaves you heading back to your cold flat and your rented room with a pit in your stomach.


OWNERS at the Jermyn Street Theatre

Reviewed on 18th October 2023

by Anna Studsgarth

Photography by Steve Gregson

 

 

 

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Infamous | ★★★★ | September 2023
Spiral | ★★ | August 2023
Farm Hall | ★★★★ | March 2023
Love All | ★★★★ | September 2022
Cancelling Socrates | ★★★★ | June 2022
Orlando | ★★★★ | May 2022
Footfalls and Rockaby | ★★★★★ | November 2021
The Tempest | ★★★ | November 2021
This Beautiful Future | ★★★ | August 2021

Owners

Owners

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