It’s not all been perfect, but what an appealing season of variety and surprises the Orange Tree has offered. Wilderness (1958) is a rare play by novelist Doris Lessing, written immediately before her masterpiece The Golden Notebook and sharing many of that work’s themes. It’s a maelstrom of politics and passion but goodness me is it wordy.
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Tony Bolton (Joel MacCormack, one to watch) returns from National Service to a house in customary turmoil. His mother Myra (Clare Holman) is a free-thinking, free-loving proto-feminist, but Tony is weary of his elders’ politics of protest. All he wants is his bedroom back – and it’s increasingly hard to disagree with him.
Paul Miller’s solid production shows the play to be an intriguing curio more than anything else and all the characters become rather tiresome after they’ve made their various points, at length, for the umpteenth time. I was also perplexed as to how one domestic hallway, the stated setting, could be so capacious. Nonetheless, there’s a fine central turn from Holman, who captures the quiet desperation behind Myra’s gaiety and Lessing has a sharp point to make about one generation’s spark becoming another’s complacency.
Until May 16 (020 8940 3633; orangetreetheatre.co.uk)
