How come, when Pinero was once mentioned in the same breath as Ibsen and Wilde? Or, crucially, when The Second Mrs Tanqueray remains a biting and psychologically astute piece of theatre, 100-plus years later?
While Hedda Gabler – the part every actress would kill to play – paces up and down the Old Vic, Laura Michelle Kelly relishes the lesser-known but equally complex Paula Tanqueray in Kingston’s Rose Theatre on the other side of town.
Having played Eliza Doolittle in the West End’s My Fair Lady a few years back, Kelly is no stranger to ‘commoner rises up the social ladder’ drama. As the titular wife here – a role last enjoyed by Felicity Kendall in 1981 – she is expected to be simultaneously womanly and childish, attractive, catty, fragile, wounded, proud, verging on neurotic and, somehow, sympathetic. It’s a credit to both Kelly and Pinero’s writing that Paula works so well, and a crime that more actresses have no idea that they would kill to play her.
The tale of a ‘bad’ woman who marries above her and strives to be respected by not only her neighbour and step-daughter but also her husband, Tanqueray may have lost some shock value over the century, but its emotional core is everlasting. The women’s lib issue may be something we keep brushing aside as ‘has-been’, yet the audible scoffs and wincing from every woman in the audience every time Paula was patronised, diminished or dismissed was telling. Modern as we are, we still judge women’s ‘purity’ by stricter standards than men’s.
But this, ironically, is diminishing Tanqueray, a play far more layered than a mere battle of the sexes; an incisive look at our insistence on deciding people’s value by their backgrounds.
Thankfully, there are generous helpings of sharp humour, chiefly from Joseph Alessi as the divine Cayley Drummle. Sally Tatum and Daniel Goode camp it up to great effect in the second act as the Orreyeds, and a public scene of marital dischord between them is both funny and cringe-inducingly hideous to watch. Are we asked to sympathise with Mrs for being regarded as ‘beneath’ the man she married, or with Mr, who so obviously misses the family that have disowned him for it?
The design is stylish beyond words, with only a few pieces of furniture and candlelight to offset the suitably blank background.
The ending, unfortunately, is abrupt and unexpectedly didactic. While this is purely Pinero’s doing, director Stephen Unwin has actress Rona Morison repeat her final line over and over, thus underlining the melodrama that already threatens to destabilise the scathing play preceding it.
Performed on Wednesday 5th October 2012 at the Rose Theatre in Kingston.
Are you going to see the show? Let us know below…