It’s the latter that casts a longer shadow here, with a larger-than-life matriarch, a good-looking corn fed interloper, and a fragile young girl yearning for escape.
The feeling that we’ve swum in these shallows before is emphasised by Diana Quick’s Eva, who has a habit of repeating oft-told stories, even occasionally getting others to tell the stories for her by proxy. Quick salutes her own name by gliding from over-bearing Jewish mom with crowd-pleasing laughs to carefully considered and tight-lipped sage with such a speed that the gear change is completed before you’re even aware that it’s in play.
Eva is presented as the possible villain of the piece, even when it appears that every statement she says is true and without malicious intent, meaning that we don’t quite know who to trust. The play explores a good many of Tennessee Williams’ other preoccupations before the story is done, not least via the character of Nick, who as a sometime writer in the city is a familiar character.
Luke Allen-Gale keeps him cheerful and awkward, a man who fears consequence, but not entirely aware when a storm has passed. He is playfully nicknamed in a reference to tabula rasa, but here everyone is a blank slate, making it pleasingly difficult to read: a group of people who appear to be going to overly complicated lengths to keep their lives simple, whilst assuming the worst about others.
While the idea of an ‘American plan’ itself is nothing more consequential than a choice of menu, it’s Gil (Mark Edel-Hunt) who has a plan that could actually work: and it’s that of an American Dream that could genuinely be within reach, the cruel joke being that in a play like this, it can’t possibly be that simple. It’s Edel-Hunt that has the most difficult role in practically the least stage time: a gentleman caller of exposition and metaphor, he may (with the exception of Dona Croll’s Olivia) be the most honest character we see, despite living a pretty fundamental lie.
Emily Taaffe is compelling as Lili, charismatic and exhausting in equal measure, believable both as a woman on the verge of hysteria and a girl who is just about strong enough to escape whatever hangs over her, whether that is her own mania, or her own mother. Early on, Lili warns of dangers in the waters that surround them, before declaring that she was only joking, that there is nothing hidden in the depths to harm.
If The American Plan stands shoulder to shoulder with the likes of The Glass Menagerie, Richard Greenberg is certainly aware of his own theatrical trappings: finally despairing of Olivia’s bit of business with some wool and needles, Lili demands, ‘Does your knitting ever become anything?’. It’s a question that – both as metaphor and as a simple, direct enquiry – is teasingly left unanswered.
Performed on Monday 8 July 2013 at the St James Theatre in London.
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