The Dance of Death, Trafalgar Studios, SW1 - review

Regrets and disappointments of a sour marriage are laid out for all to see in this Strindberg black comedy adaptation
11 January 2013

Here’s a nice festive offering from the Donmar’s Trafalgar Studios season to get us into the Christmas spirit, courtesy of that well-known Scandinavian chuckler August Strindberg. On greater reflection, this cheerily titled piece may be cannily counter-intuitive December programming, as many couples might find themselves imitating this marital danse macabre over the forthcoming holiday season.

This pitch-black comedy, presenting issues of tone and nuance that director Titas Halder doesn’t always manage to even out, is presented in a new version by Conor McPherson which is admirably robust if occasionally over-demotic. The setting is a musty, dusty house on a remote island outpost where Edgar (Kevin R McNally), a downwardly mobile army captain, ekes out a fractious and impecunious marriage with his much-younger wife Alice (Indira Varma, who doesn’t look old enough to have been married for 25 years). With their shared lifetime of regrets and disappointments they’re an unmistakable precursor to George and Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, as they argue ferociously over things that often turn out to be elaborate fabrications.

It’s impossible to get to the truth of Edgar and Alice’s relationship as Strindberg is constantly peeling back the onion layers of secrets and lies that tear them apart yet, perversely, bind them together. The unfortunate guest who has to try and pick his way through this marital minefield is Alice’s cousin Kurt (Daniel Lapaine).

Lapaine sustains just the right note of earnest concern overlaying an easily roused animal ferocity and McNally makes delicate work of Edgar’s tricky-to-portray range of ailments. But it’s Varma who proves the most compelling viewing, spinning her character from prim imperiousness to manipulative vixen and back again, all the while reminding us of the actress that Alice used to be.

Until Jan 5 (0844 871 7632, donmarwarehouse.com)

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