Aura-Pont - Reactions to London production of Leaving

The fact Havel entrusted his play into Sam Walters’ care was not just an expression of gratitude for the role his theatre played in producing Havel’s plays in the past – Orange Tree had a number of British premieres of the playwright’s output when Havel was still banned in the Czech Republic and could only dream of visiting a performance in London. But, by the same token, Sam Walters acquired extensive experience with staging Havel’s plays.

After David Radok’s existential and visually and theatrically refined Prague production,Leaving could not possibly be given a more opposite approach than in the London production. The small arena-shaped auditorium at the Orange Tree only leaves very little space for the set design (Sam Dawson). The audience sits straight on the threshold of the Chancellor’s villa, sharing the space with the characters of the drama. The characters are distinguished from the surrounding viewers by the marked theatricality of their performance. The audience adapts quickly to it and – ironically – starts to realise Sam Walters’ sober and down to earth directing idiom.

The actors almost never go for portraying external shape of their characters: they trust the image to emerge eventually from Havel’s dialogues, lines and situations. It is obvious Walters has an unerring ear for their paradoxes and about-faces that are faithfully rendered in a precise and inspired translation by Paul Wilson.

Havel’s little clockwork works flawlessly

But most of all, the director could rely on the English actors’ well-honed rhetoric skills. They are delivering Havel’s complicated tirades with such ease it would almost seem they cannot speak differently. Their reactions come extremely fast and very precisely, and the same goes for their voice melody and timing of the lines and action. They remind one of the favourite word Havel sometimes uses to describe his plays – “little clockwork”.

Sam Walters is in strong, although discreet, control of this clockwork: he might slow it down (as in the movie-like slow motion slaps, well directed by Irena on her opponents) or let it run in the “neutral” gear and let the English audience savour the comments by the Voice recorded by the author with his cute Czech accent. But the characters themselves do not come across as “clockworks”: their human profile is composed from inconspicuous little actions (their behaviour when confronted one after another with the microphone held by Jack the Journalist creates a sort of small soap opera as the play evolves).

The actors deliver mostly clear cut characters, sometimes quite different from their Prague counterparts: Irene (Carolyn Backhouse) replaces departing charm by authoritarianism, the Granny (Auriol Smith-Walters) struggles with Parkinson disease, but has still enough energy for causing mischief, Viktor played by David Antrobus does not take off his mask of a loyal secretary even while betraying the protagonist, while Bea (Rebecca Pownell) is purposeful in her efforts to make men happy with her naive enthusiasm.

The self-assured authority of the robust Vlastík Klein (Robert Austin) is only occasionally undermined by the hedonism with which he demands whisky (!) and devours biscuits. The vain, wimpy Rieger played by Geoffrey Beavers definitely refutes the impression that the character might be Havel’s self-projection. That raises a question whether a certain devaluation of the lead character does not in fact disturb the production’s balance. However, as Rieger leaves the stage at the end of the play holding a giant Gandhi head under his arm, London audience is chilled – the more so the more they were enjoying the entertainment until then.

Jitka Sloupová, Lidové noviny, ?.9.2008

Jak Rieger odchází po anglicku

Olga Vlčková, Týdeník A2

Leaving

Philip Fischer, The British Theatre Guide

Leaving, Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond

Michael Coveney, The Independent, 30.9.2008

Britské Odcházení Václava Havla ztrácí závažnost

Kateřina Kočičková, MF Dnes, 29.9.2008

Havel ocenil londýnské představení své hry Odcházení

ČTK, České noviny, 27.9.2008

Leaving, Orange Tree, Richmond