By Bernadette Rae
Amy's View
The Maidment Theatre
If it had been on television, this great big play of David Hare, I might, somewhere around the middle of the third act, have turned it off.
There are so many words, so much passion and articulate argument. Such a heavyweight of ideas and views might well have triggered a finger on the remote control, signalling desperately and in self defence, "Enough already!"
But you can't do that with real life actors in real time. And just as well, because I would have missed the very best bit: the dramatic, reflective final scene - and coming away in stunned and satisfied silence at the breadth of views experienced during the journey travelled.
Amy's View is a play about women's lives, about families, especially mothers and daughters, about the power of love, certainly about art and whether the theatre is dead - and about television.
It also takes a swipe or two at the Meaning of Life in general and the unreliable nature of reality, just in passing - so it could be just a bit much if it wasn't all so good and splendid and theatrical.
And it does not go short of a few belly laughs, mostly at the expense of Ken Blackburn's dreadful character Frank Odie, a mild little man with a lot - about œ2 million sunk in the Lloyd's Names scam - to answer for. Hare's genius for finding the funny bone in our most tragic humanity shines forth as brightly as his intellect and Blackburn makes the most of his comedic score.
Ilona Rodgers is a brave and believable Esme, conquering the welter of lines, and by far the greatest dramatic burden of the night, without falter. Sara Wiseman makes her professional stage debut, as Amy Thomas, earnestly and honestly. Craig Parker is super cool, Dorothy McKegg wonderfully confused and William Plumb cute and cheeky.
John Parker's set design, with a veritable gallery of pictures by artist David Kayrouz, remains bright and beautiful throughout three of the play's marathon of four full acts. Then there is the superb, mirrored finale.
Clever, thought provoking and relevant.
Stunning breadth of views
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