Okay, so this is, at long last, the final National Theatre Live/The Shows Must Go On review I had sitting on ice. Even though The Shows Must Go On has recently started up again, I haven’t kept up with it. (That said, National Theatre Live is finally starting a streaming service!! While I haven’t subscribed it, it’ll definitely be coming at some point. So grateful that they’re going to have wider options for being able to view their recordings – I get wanting to keep theatre an “event” in the limited cinema showings and whatnot, but in my book, more accessible theatre can only be a good thing.)
Like Small Island, The Deep Blue Sea is one whose story I originally encountered in a filmed adaptation of the play, which I sought out because of the particular actors in it. In this case, it was Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston, and I didn’t really connect with the film. But while the recording of this production isn’t my favorite of National Theatre Live’s pandemic offerings, it still captured my interest more than the movie did.
The young Welch couple are troubled when they come upon a woman who’s attempted suicide in a neighboring flat. As landladies and unofficial physicians flit about, more is revealed about Hester, the wife of a prominent, respectable judge who abandoned her position and wealth to take up with a mercurial young RAF pilot. Hester’s past decisions inform her unhappy present as she tries to salvage the relationship she hoped for instead of the one she wound up having.
That summary feels a little lacking, but it covers the jist of it. Hester is a woman who sought to escape the comfortable, well-fed life of quiet desperation she was living, only to find herself stuck in a dingy flat surrounded by reminders of her faded romance. After blowing up her life and going all in on this man, she’s been trying to live for him, but Freddie, who didn’t have to give up anything to be with her, doesn’t treat their relationship with the same weight or urgency. The play nicely explores this fraught dynamic, and while Hester’s behavior at times feels pitiful, we always understand the emotions that are guiding it.
This play was advertised chiefly for its leading lady, Helen McCrory. I’ve seen her pop up in a variety of things, such as Draco Malfoy’s mom in the later Harry Potter films, but I’ll always remember her best for the first time I saw her, as Rosanna in Doctor Who’s “The Vampire of Venice.” That electric scene between her and Matt Smith’s Doctor as they probe and question one another is a standout of series 5, and she commands the screen with such easy elegance. Most things I’ve seen her in since then haven’t had much to offer her, so I was glad for a chance to see her take center stage in this play. Her Hester is very compelling, a well-to-do woman trying to maintain her dignity, or at least the appearance of it, even as she scrapes for the affections of a man who doesn’t prioritize her. It’s about Freddie, because she’s very much all about Freddie, but it’s about her too. For Hester, this relationship has to work because of all she sacrificed for its sake – if Freddie isn’t everything she dreamed he’d be when she left her husband, then what was it all for, and what does that say about her?
The small cast acquits themselves well, each actor filling out their role and place in the story. Other actors of note include Tom Burke (who I always recognize from State of Play) as Freddie and Adetomiwa Edun (another Who alum, from the Twelfth Doctor Christmas special “The Return of Doctor Mysterio”) as Freddie’s friend Jackie – looking him up on IMDb, I realized I also knew Edun from the second series of The Hour. I’m less familiar as Peter Sullivan, but he’s very effective as Hester’s husband.
Warnings
Strong thematic elements (including suicide,) sexual content, drinking/smoking, and language.
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