The Misanthrope
Comedy Theatre, London
She’s the most famous young pout in Hollywood. And her first West End appearance has already sparked a media frenzy, making this contemporary version of Molière’s The Misanthrope the hottest ticket in town.
Of course, I’m talking about Keira Knightley – I mean, who isn’t? But what about the play, which opened with a barrage of paparazzi flashbulbs? And how does La Knightley shape up?
Written by Martin Crimp, this take on Molière’s 1666 tale about the sourpuss Alceste, who has a pretty low opinion of pretty much everyone he comes across, is set in the present and is a sharp satire on media folk. Alceste, completely refigured as a contemporary playwright, is the lover of an American film star, Jennifer. Around this couple, there is a circle of arty folk, including a critic, a journalist, an actor, an agent and an acting teacher.
Crimp’s text cuts and thrusts deliciously close to the bone, satirising celebrity culture and taking pops at playwrights David Hare and Tom Stoppard, as well as at Damien Hirst. Although originally staged in 1996, the play retains its freshness of insight and its rhyming stanzas have been updated in places to make room for a barbed reference to David Cameron’s insincerity, and the play is timelessly and gloriously rude about artistic pretension and social mannerisms.
Superbly bitchy, Crimp’s rasping wit hits out at false friendship, treacherous ambition, naked opportunism, journalist malpractice, postmodern clichés and the whole media circus. But since the characters are all equally unappealing – and equally vulnerable – there is little room inside the play to take a moral stance. In fact, Alceste’s obsession with truth comes across as neurotic rigidity.
Played with enormous energy, but also with a monotonous lack of inflection by Damian Lewis, he is a compulsive truth-teller who seems chronically unable to tell those polite little white lies that oil the wheels of social life. And he’s also a monster of jealousy, constantly convinced that Jennifer is being unfaithful to him.
Knightley, of course, is Jennifer. And she is perfect in the role, clearly enjoying the portrayal of her character’s shallowness, a seductive mix of flirtatiousness and vulnerability. Although her voice is a bit thin, the note of iron that enters it when she is genuinely annoyed is as hard as truth itself. And if she seems a trifle underpowered for most of the evening, she does save her best for last. So, at the very end of the show, she suddenly seems to grow and you leave the theatre won over.
Directed competently by Thea Sharrock, the play is set in a luxurious hotel room, designed by Hildegard Bechtler to be one part Starck to two parts Louis Quatorze. But Lewis and Knightley are both outshone by Tara FitzGerald as Jennifer’s bossy acting teacher. She knows that acting in plays with such artificial verse requires timing and timing means stopping every now and again. Most diverting of all the minor roles is Tim McMullan’s performance as the critic Covington, almost bursting with overweening self-importance.
So while cynics have been carping about the irony of having a Hollywood star acting in a satire of, among other things, Hollywood stardom, there are some other reasons to feel deflated. This is a thoroughly enjoyable play that, alas, worked better in the original production, which was funnier and more precisely acted. However, casting Keira Knightley is not the problem; casting Damian Lewis is.
Aleks Sierz
