Flare Path – review

Theatre Royal Haymarket, London Sienna Miller may be the box-office draw, but Trevor Nunn’s magnificent revival of Terence Rattigan’s 1942 play is an ensemble achievement. And that seems appropriate for a play that is a tribute to the collective spirit of wartime bomber crews and their partners. Given the circumstances, you’d hardly expect a debate about the morality of the air offensive: what the play provides, with Rattigan’s characteristic flair for understatement, is a deeply moving portrait of people at war. The action is set in a Lincolnshire hotel lounge in the autumn of 1941: it’s where the RAF pilots and crews hang out before and after their raids on German territory. But Rattigan uses a personal dilemma as a way of exploring the group ethos. Peter Kyle, an ageing Hollywood star, has turned up in the hope of reclaiming the one true love of his life, the recently married Patricia. She, however, is faced with a conflict. Who needs her more? Kyle, whose career is on the skids, or her pilot husband, Teddy, whose breezy manner conceals shattered nerves? But the private drama is played out against the background of a bombing raid which is “not exactly a piece of cake”. Rattigan allows himself one sentimental piece of plotting; and the final act of renunciation has strong echoes of A Tale of Two Cities, which he and Gielgud had adapted in 1935. But the occasional romanticism is counterbalanced by Rattigan’s genius for barely expressed emotion. A simple exchange of goodbyes between a tail-gunner and his wife, as he leaves for a raid, brings a lump to the throat. And, as the men fly off to face possible death, the wife of a Polish pilot says to Patricia: “This is the first time you’ve been here for a do, isn’t it?” In one sense, Rattigan’s plays are an attack on the English vice of emotional containment. But he also understood its dramatic power and, watching this play, it struck me that Rattigan learned that from his own wartime RAF experience. Nunn’s production, using interpolated film of the flight take-off, beautifully captures both the sense of danger and its boozy, raucous aftermath. And the performances are impeccable. Sienna Miller looks suitably strained, tense and taut as the agonised Patricia and James Purefoy admirably conveys the sense of exclusion felt by the movie star caught up in wartime action. Sheridan Smith is also quite stunning as a former barmaid who now finds herself a countess because of her marriage to the Polish pilot: Smith never overdoes the brassiness and there is a heart-stopping moment when her features light up as she learns, from a letter, how much she was loved by her missing-in-action husband. But all the acting is first-rate, from Harry Hadden-Paton as Patricia’s secretly terrified husband to Clive Wood as the bluff squadron leader who, in one of the play’s few overtly patriotic lines, says: “My God, we do owe these boys something, you know.” It is typical of Rattigan that this is delivered almost as an aside; and it is precisely that embarrassed English emotional hesitancy that makes this play so overwhelmingly moving. Rating: 4/5 Terence Rattigan Theatre Sienna Miller Michael Billington guardian.co.uk

Posted by on March 13, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.