I can see that the play is historically significant in both its sexual frankness and portrayal of the pessimism and soul-sickness that enveloped much of Europe after the First World War, allowing Nazism to flourish. But that doesn’t make watching it any more bearable. The characters are flatly drawn, and though the truly great miserabilist masterpieces – King Lear, say, or Beckett’s Endgame – leave the audience purged and braced, this narcissistic, self-pitying bunch merely leave you feeling irritated.
Under the dire circumstances the cast do pretty well. Geoffrey Streatfeild is horribly compelling as the dark, manipulative Freder who persuades the maid to become a prostitute and supplies suicide potions gratis. Lydia Wilson is alluring as the aristocratic femme fatale who ends up killing herself, and Laura Elphinstone harrowingly shows a once strong and capable woman sucked into a vortex of misery. But frankly the only remotely enjoyable thing about this show is the moment when it stops.

See the full article from “Telegraph.co.uk”



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