There is an air of consumer hopelessness about the flashier London shows at the moment.Glenn Close in A Streetcar Named Desire? You can't get in. Sam Mendes' forthcoming Twelfth Night? Forget it. Now The Breath of Life is completely sold out. The producer didn't even have to place an ad. It is no surprise, really. The show stars the two hottest female properties in British theatre.
Although you might have seen them together in a film like Tea With Mussolini, Maggie Smith and Judi Dench haven't been on stage together for 40 years. These two dames of the British theatre - 90 y ears of stage experience between them - slug it out in an evening of high style, albeit in a rather watery new play by Sir David Hare.
The dames play two women who have loved the same man, a radical lawyer we never meet. Madeleine Palmer (Smith) is holed up in her flat on the Isle of Wight when one day Frances Beale (Dench) walks into her life. Over Chinese beer, cigarettes and take-out curry, the pair prise out of each other dark secrets about the man they both loved and lost.
Judi Dench, the betrayed housewife-turned-novelist, is up against Maggie Smith as the self-reliant, acid-tongued scholar - by far the best part. It is an evening full of funny one-liners and Maggie knocks them all for six. When she says: "I like orgies. . . finally they become a hobby", you get that wonderful funny mix of filth and weariness she does so effortlessly.
Dench is terrific too, at one point crying real tears for a life that has gone down the pan.
Howard Davies directs the production invisibly to the sound of seagulls, but there is an off-putting air of "masterpiece theatre" about it all. The author, who has set the action on the Isle of Wight purely so he can include two jokes at the place's expense, is at his best when putting the boot in. He has a go at the modern novel, Americans, the family, the me-culture, but I'm afraid we've heard it all before.
Make no mistake: the two dames are simply terrific, a true pleasure to watch and, as evenings go, it's good, but it is not that good.
Thanks to Cindy Fiorina for sending this article, which appeared in The Express (UK) on October 18, 2002.
The same writer -- on October 16, 2002 -- wrote this mini-review after having seen the play on the first night:
The Breath of Life Haymarket Theatre, London THE big slug-out between two of British theatre's heavyweights has finally happened. Dame Judi Dench and Dame Maggie Smith appeared last night together for the first time.
Best mates off stage, they were pretty rude to each other on.
Bicker, snipe, whinge.
Maggie's got the best part, Judi the best hair-do.
Sir David Hare's new play is about two women picking over the bones of the one man both have loved and have lost.
The play's a totally surprise-free zone but you get some great one-liners and superlative acting in this emotive jog down memory lane.
It is one of Hare's weaker efforts but it's still a treat though for those fans of these two amazing dames.