The Two Character Play – Hampstead Theatre, London

A review of The Two Character Play, a Tennessee Williams play which originally premiered right here at the Hampstead Theatre. But was I going mad, or was the play?

The Two Character Play – A Late Work By Tennessee Williams

I knew very little about The Two Character Play going into this. Just a brief synopsis that I had read, possibly in the programme for The Death of a Black Man, which made it sound like a Hitchcock film. ‘Two travelling actors are performing a repertory work, but the lines between the play and reality start to become confused.’ Something like that. In the end I think it was more like a Pinter play or a David Lynch film than Hitchcock. Luckily I did not know this beforehand or I might not have given it a shot.

The Two Character Play is a late work by Tennessee Williams. It was first staged in 1967 right here at Hampstead Theatre. This may seem unusual for a work by a famous and definitively American playwright. But Williams’ career was not at its peak at this time. And besides, he had struck up a friendship with James Roose-Evans, founding artistic director at Hampstead Theatre. After this first staging, Williams revised the play several times, even giving it a different title for a while. So what we see now is one of several possible versions.

Generally Williams’ late plays are considered to be lesser than famous early works like A Streetcar Named Desire or Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. An essay by William Foxworth in the programme makes the point that some of them may just have not been what was expected of Williams by this time. The Two Character Play is like meta-theatre, a play within a play, experimental. Theatre like this is much better suited to an open-minded audience somewhere like Hampstead Theatre, rather than the big Broadway openings that Williams’ plays often commanded by this point. The point is, I think, that one should make one’s own mind up, rather than going in with too many preconceived ideas.

A Play Within A Play

The Two Character Play is, as the title suggests, a two-hander. Siblings Claire (Kate O’Flynn) and Felice (Zubin Varla) are actors. The rest of their company have fled leaving a note beginning “You and your sister are insane…” Felice is determined the show must go on, however, and chooses The Two Character Play as the only one they can feasibly stage. Without additional support, Felice must manage the lighting, sound effects and set.

Rosanna Vize‘s design is clever in this regard. We can’t forget this is a play within a play, as we are looking at a set within a set: both the bare bones of Hampstead Theatre and the siblings’ smaller set. Through lighting and sound design we also become part of the action. The house lights stay up initially as we fulfil the role of the audience for the play within a play.

If this all sounds complicated, it is a bit. British and American/Southern accents help to track when Clare and Felice slip in and out of character. But this is a play about madness, and as such purposely disorients the viewer. Williams was inspired by his sister Rose, who struggled greatly with mental illness and was lobotomised in the 1940s. Some of the most touching moments are Clare’s reactions to the idea of confinement, her fear of the outside world. It is a very intimate play for all its strangeness.

Final Thoughts

At times I felt like I wasn’t intellectual enough or enough of a theatre insider to ‘get’ this play. I get the same feeling from works by Harold Pinter and David Lynch who I mentioned earlier. I like a nice narrative structure which I can understand, and tend to react negatively to things which I feel are deliberately making no sense. In the absence of sense, though, my sense is that this is a piece of theatre which deserves to be considered on its own, without comparison to Williams’ earlier works. Seeing it in this season of new work and revived premieres at Hampstead Theatre reminds us of this an interesting anecdote in the history of American theatre in London.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 3/5

The Two Character Play on until 28 August 2021

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