Theatre review: Bitter Wheat

Let's face it, the prospect of an incredibly rare John Malkovich stage appearance has to be the main if not only draw to Bitter Wheat, David Mamet's new play which sounded like a pretty bad idea from the moment it was announced: A #MeToo-themed play officially not based on Harvey Weinstein but absolutely and undeniably based on Harvey Weinstein, if nothing else it seemed to demonstrate a remarkable tin ear to exactly whose story this is to tell. Or maybe Mamet is the best person for the job, in the sense that at least he got there before Neil LaBute. And who knows, maybe the play would surprise everyone and be much better than expected. But no, it's actually worse, because as well as hitting all the bum notes feared, it's also kind of... dull. In what I feel incredibly generous in describing as the plot, Malkovich plays Barney Fein (again, not to be in any way confused with Harvey Weinstein,) one of Hollywood's most powerful and feared movie producers, who we first see screwing over a writer by refusing to pay for the script he delivered.

In what is presumably meant to be a clinically modern version of a doom-laden prophecy that might open a classical tragedy, the Writer (Matthew Pidgeon) wishes a curse on Warvey Heinstein, that he be punished for the way he treats people.

It comes true with his very next mistreatment, when the prostitute he’s hired doesn’t turn up, and instead he gets his assistants Sondra (Doon Mackichan) and Roberto (Alexander Arnold) to carry out the “usual plan,” which involves trapping British-Korean actress Yung Kim Lee (Ioanna Kimbook) in a hotel room with him, where he can variously attempt to bribe and intimidate her into sex. For once his plan goes wrong and everything ends up very public, and within days the other actresses he’s assaulted over the years are all coming forward to tell their stories as well. Harvard Weisenstein dominates the play to such an extent that, on paper, you can perhaps see why Malkovich might be attracted to the role, but in practice he’s such a one-note monster the actor struggles to give him any kind of interesting light and shade.

If I can scrape a positive comment for Bitter Wheat it’s that Malkovich’s creeping, self-pitying character’s circling around his victim has moments that are genuinely skin-crawlingly sinister, which would be an asset if this was a drama played out as a thriller. Unfortunately it’s actually a comedy (allegedly,) and these moments just feel like something uncomfortable that crept in from a different show entirely. Honestly it’s hard to know where to start on what’s wrong with Bitter Wheat; on one level it’s just not an interesting show to have to plod through. Part of Winey Harvstein’s domineering personality is that he’s constantly barking questions at his minions without bothering to listen to the answers, which means he’s forever repeating himself. And as the only character with any significant amount of dialogue, that means two hours of listening to him going round in circles.

And as well as making the play’s lead almost antisocial enough to get a front-of-house job at a Nimax theatre, this all means everyone else on stage might as well be furniture, with the supporting characters popping in and out of the story with little context or effect (given the subject matter it’s particularly egregious in the case of the female roles – outnumbered 5 to 2 anyway – with it really disappointing to see Mackichan’s talents wasted this way.) Other than as another butt-monkey to be victimised it’s also not clear why the character of Roberto even exists; the only explanation I could think of was that Mamet wanted Sondra to desert Heiney Warvstein, and then needed someone left on stage to answer the doorbell.

But in the end it’s in the most obvious aspect that the play is at its most offensively misjudged. The first act twice has the curtain fall for set-changes (I guess Mamet, also directing, was worried that some energy might have accidentally built up, and made sure to kill it?) and at the second of these the person sitting behind me said “well this is clearly a personal attack on Harvey Weinstein” and I think she hit the nail on the head: This is Mamet taking advantage of (and profiting from) the revelations around Weinstein to hurriedly take a pop at someone he presumably already didn’t like, and kick him while he’s down (it’s noticeable that for all the insistence that the story is entirely fictional and coincidental, it didn’t materialise before the accusations, when it might have actually contributed to the debate and maybe even warned a few women away from danger.) If it’s safe to make an assumption that one of America’s most successful male writers in his seventies wasn’t sexually targeted by someone who usually went after female ingénues, then what we’ve got is Mamet taking a high-profile platform that could have been used by someone with an actual voice in the discussion, and using it for a petty point-scoring exercise. It’s one of many things about the whole dreary enterprise that just feels a bit grubby.

Bitter Wheat by David Mamet is booking until the 21st of September at the Garrick Theatre.

Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan.