Theatre review: In Praise of Love

1973's In Praise of Love is one of Terence Rattigan's last plays, a time when his star was in the descendant, and at times it does feel like we're going to be in for the work of a playwright whose best days are behind him. But like its characters, it's got hidden depths to take you by surprise. Sebastian Cruttwell (Dominic Rowan) is a literary critic for a Sunday paper, a vocal Marxist with undisguised contempt for anyone who doesn't share his belief in the theory, but not particularly keen on discussing how the USSR worked out in practice. After the end of WWII he met Estonian refugee Lydia (Claire Price) in Berlin's British quarter, and married her so she could come back to England, with the intention of divorcing once she got her citizenship. Decades on they're still married, and have a 20-year-old son, Joey (Joe Edgar,) who to his father's disgust campaigns for the Liberal Party.

For all his egalitarian politics Sebastian is a domineering presence in the home, an old-fashioned figure who can't look after himself if his wife isn't there to cook and clean for him, and Lydia is trying to find a replacement to keep him company when she goes on holiday for ten days.

But this is a test run for a longer absence: Lydia has been keeping from him the fact that she's got an incurable degenerative condition, caused by malnutrition during the war. Two factors bring all these secrets to a crux: The arrival of Mark (Daniel Abelson,) a hugely successful American novelist and old friend of the couple whose love of Lydia has never been a secret; and the BBC broadcast of Joey's first TV play.

If this is quite an uneven play it's because the first act has a lot of scene-setting and exposition to get through, and it's quite a dark story to fill in. The arrival of Joey - one of the characters left in the dark about his mother's illness - does shake up the dynamic a bit as he has a very drily witty way of dismissing the approval he actually genuinely craves from his father. And the second act, dealing with his father's failure to turn up to watch the show and the fallout from that, takes us from something that just about holds the interest to something that kept me leaning in to catch every moment.

Here we see the way Rattigan has manipulated us into disliking Sebastian so he can pull the rug out from under us about his real motivations: Among other moments Rowan has a queasily harrowing speech about the wartime experiences his wife doesn't like to talk about, but this is still balanced out by a lot more moments of comedy that really punctuate the tension. Amelia Sears' production uses stark changes in Bethany Gupwell's lighting and Elizabeth Purnell's sound to take us through the contradictory and complex moods of this family dynamic.

In the end the title manages to feel both ironic and sincere as Rattigan investigates the kind of Englishness he's both fond and critical of: What we would now call love language is displayed through behaviour that's deceptive and/or toxic, and ultimately hurts both parties equally. It's unhealthy and twisted, but the play also displays a kind of admiration for the kind of self-sacrifice involved in following this kind of perverse love logic.

In Praise of Love by Terence Rattigan is booking until the 5th of July at the Orange Tree Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Ellie Kurttz.