Complexities of Love and War

Flare Path

by Terence Rattigan

"The title of the play refers to the flares that were used to light runways to allow planes to take off and land but the flare paths were also used by the Germans to target the RAF planes." (BBC Radio 3)

  Years before I was born in a small town in Wisconsin my mother-to-be was living in Alexandria Virginia, a suburb of Washington D. C.  The year was 1942 and as it slowly faded in to the next year my father, whom she had married earlier that same year was in the Army Air Corps on his way to the Southeastern Pacific islands.  He would not return for several years, but I wonder how often my mother spent her evenings poring over his letters home with secret fears  that his return would never occur.  I attended a play yesterday afternoon that laid bare similar emotions of three British couples along with more complex feelings arising from the complexities of love relationships.  

  These relationships and emotions were dramatically portrayed by a skilled ensemble of actors in a production of Terence Rattigan's play, Flare Path.  Based on his own experiences in the RAF, this play, written in 1941 and first staged in 1942.  Set in a hotel near an RAF Bomber Command airbase during the Second World War, the story involves a love triangle between a pilot, his actress wife and a famous film star.  It was his first successful serious drama and first commercial success since the mid-1930s.  

  The play portrays the impact on three couples of the demands on the fliers who leave, perhaps never to return, and their wives and lovers who wait for their return.  Of the three couples, one is a young sergeant whose working wife is visiting for the weekend.  Another is a Polish emigre Count who has married a British bar maid so that he may join the fight against the Germans.  And the third couple is a young Lieutenant who is facing his own demons and is unsure if he is a worthy mate for his wife, one Patricia Graham, an actress from London, who has something of her own to tell her husband Teddy, the  bomber pilot. The situation is complicated when Peter Kyle, a Hollywood film star, arrives at the hotel, and Teddy is sent out on a night raid over Germany. Patricia is torn between a rekindled old flame and loyalty to the husband who relies on her for support.  The tension mounts as the the night moves into morning and the fliers begin their return.  Rattigan effectively ratchets the emotional tensions and the suspense upward until the climax.  

  Griffin Theatre Company produced the play and it was directed by Robin Witt.  The ensemble was uniformly excellent in their respective roles.  In particular I enjoyed the performances of Vanessa Greenway as the wife of the Count and Darci Nalepa as Patricia Warren.  Joey deBettencourt was outstanding as he brought believable emotional tension to his portrayal of Bomber Pilot Teddy Graham.  The cast was brought together under Robin Witt's direction which captured the drama that Rattigan poured into this, one of his best plays.  Also worthy of mention was the set designed by Joe Schermoly whose underscored the soaring emotional drama with soaring details of wall and stairs.  I am glad I experienced this fine Griffin Theatre production and may add it to the many Rattigan plays that I have enjoyed over the years.

*Photo above, right: Terence Rattigan in London in 1948.

On the Shore of the Wide World

Simon Stephens' play, which won the prestigious British 'Olivier Award' as the best new play in 2006, is currently receiving its Chicago Premiere produced by the Griffin Theatre Company. I attended yesterday's matinee and concur with the critics' reviews that this is an outstanding production. Jonathan Berry directed with focus and cohesiveness essential for the multi-generational story.
The play tells of three generations of the Holmes family whose lives are touched by tragedy and gradually uncovered during the course of the play until you feel like you are a part of their family. During the first two sections the tension builds and events suggest the potential of dire fates for some of the family, but there are also glimmers of hope and the ultimate outcome is not clear until the last scene. The cast was excellent with Paul D'Addario and Elise Kauzlaric exceptional as the parents, Peter and Alice. Josh Schecter, new to this theater, was a convincing young Christopher Holmes while the grandfather, Charlie, a difficult role, was handled with rough-hewn realism by Norm Woodel. The portrayal of both hesitant young love and unique adult tensions was a key aspect of this thought-provoking drama. I would highly recommend it.

Loss of Innocence

Journey's End

by R. C. Sherriff

Last night I viewed a performance of Journey's End, the classic play set during the Great War, at the Theater Building in Lakeview. The Griffin Theatre Company production is both powerful and moving. All of the actors provide focused performances making their characters come alive on the stage as the drama unfolds. I was impressed with the contrast between the the avuncular Lieutenant Osborne (Nigel Patterson, who I have seen previously in Timeline Theater's The General from America) and the broken Captain Stanhope (Hans Fleishman) who embodies the bitterness and destruction of War in his every moment on stage. The other key role is the young 2nd Lieutenant Raliegh (John Dixson), whose innocence and hero worship of Stanhope (whom he knew as a student before the War) is destroyed by the reality of the battle. The power of this play is ever present and the actors demonstrate throughout the real emotion that must have been omni-present on the battlefield. Whether in moments of forced laughter or the brief but important interjections of silence on the stage, the drama of Journey's End is brought home in excellent fashion by this production.

The Constant Wife

Last night I attended the Griffin Theater Company production of The Constant Wife, a comedy written by W. Somerset Maugham. The play was a delight from start to finish with particularly good performances by Vanessa Greenway as Constance Middleton (the wife of the title) and Kate Harris as her mother. Maugham crafted a play about what in the mid 1920's must have been a bit less common than now, the new independent woman.
With delicious biting wit and delightful intrigue the play had me laughing about the foibles of Constance's doctor husband who was having an affair with her airhead of a best friend (played with an authentic air of frantic style by Stacie Barra). Through all the commotion of this Constance maintains a cool rational perspective, refreshingly in a play where she is surrounded by women who are almost caricatures of various female types. She truly portrays the epitome of a "constant wife". The production was well done from the set and music to the period costumes.
It was an evening where the laughter was consistent enough to make my theater companion forget all about her sore ankle. If the other plays of Maugham are as much fun I can easily understand how he once had four plays running simultaneously on the London stage.