Straight Line Crazy – Bridge Theatre, London

A review of Straight Line Crazy, a David Hare play starring Ralph Fiennes, on now at the Bridge Theatre. An interesting subject with some fine performances. But if the subject requires this much education of its audience, is it right for this format?

Straight Line Crazy

I hadn’t quite appreciated how much David Hare and Ralph Fiennes are frequent collaborators when I saw Hare’s Covid monologue Beat the Devil at the Bridge in 2020. But the programme for Straight Line Crazy lays it all out. Fiennes has starred in an awful lot of new plays by Hare. And some films where Hare was the screenwriter. The current combo of Fiennes + Hare + Nicholas Hytner directing has also happened before at the Bridge and the National Theatre. So can we expect big things from this well-practiced partnership in new play Straight Line Crazy?

Yes and no, in my opinion, and I will tell you why. To give you the TLDR version, I thought the performances were great, and the subject matter interesting. But as a play it didn’t quite work for me. Let me start with the second point to put it in context for you, and then we can take a look at the rest.

Straight Line Crazy is a play about Robert Moses. Have you heard of him before? I only have because I have my own personal Urban Geographer on tap to inform me about such things. Moses was an American public official whose projects around parks and transportation transformed New York (the City and beyond). He was not elected, but wielded quite a bit of influence built up over decades. If you’ve been to New York and been on an Expressway or Parkway, chances are you have benefited directly from Moses’ work.

Straight Line Crazy takes two moments in Moses’ life/career in order to make an interesting point. The point (or at least what I understood it to be) is this: that sometimes whether you are the good guy or the bad guy depends entirely on context and not on any inherent qualities of your own. Moses had a reputation for being incredibly uncompromising. And for being crazy about straight lines (hence the title). Meaning, if the orchard of your exclusive family estate was in the way of one of his roads, too bad for you. Or if your social housing or community space was in the way of one of your roads, too bad for you. These are the scenarios explored in the two halves of the play.

In the first scenario, Moses is doing what’s right ‘for the people’ (although precisely which people is a question that comes up later) and is a bit of a hero. In the second, when he tries to put roads through Washington Square Park, he is firmly the bad guy trying to destroy neighbourhoods in favour of cars. But Moses hasn’t changed – he seems incapable of it. What has changed is the situation, and the world around him. A very interesting premise indeed.

Is A Play The Right Format Here?

The trouble with this interesting premise, or at least the way it is communicated here, is how much information there is to impart. Hare has to teach us about urban planning, about the early-mid twentieth century context in New York; about Robert Moses’ biography. Before bringing this all together to make his point. There are two characters doing the heavy lifting in terms of exposition. One real (journalist Jane Jacobs), one fictional (Moses’ assistant Finnuala Connell). But the burden of information coming at you as an audience member does feel heavy rather than natural. If this much education is required, it made me wonder if a play of this type is the right place to make this point at all. But if you are a playwright with an idea, I guess the rest follows.

On to the other positive, then, which for me was the performances. Fiennes is very good in this role. Moses isn’t particularly likeable but Fiennes plays him well. In a way that helps us to understand him if not empathise with him. The roles then steeply descend in terms of stage time and scope for showing off acting range, but I particularly liked Danny Webb as no-nonsense man of the people Governor Al Smith. And Siobhàn Cullen as Finnuala, although the character of ‘woman pining for man her whole life’ is not normally my jam. But Cullen was warm and empathetic, and believable as someone swept up in the orbit of a forceful personality or visionary.

So all in all I am glad I saw Straight Line Crazy. I did learn a lot about city planning. Not quite what I had expected from my evening out, but interesting and perhaps one day useful. And I’m glad to have seen Fiennes in the role. Am I faltering in my enthusiasm for Fiennes + Hare + Hytner collaborations at the Bridge? Perhaps – I do miss the really exciting pandemic programming they managed in the space in 2020. Don’t let that put you off, though. There are plenty of positives to making a bee line for Straight Line Crazy.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 3/5

Straight Line Crazy on until 18 June 2022