A dame on each side of the net, and a few rallies - but no sign of the ball
"What the hell are you doing here," Maggie Smith's Madeline asks Judi Dench's Frances not long before the end of The Breath of Life.
By that time, the line is not only a much-belated inquiry about plot and character but an existential question. What made David Hare think that the two characters' arid, rambling remarks amounted to a conversation, much less a play? What are these two great actresses doing in it? And when, oh when, will it end?
The casting of this two-character show seemed to promise, if nothing else, an entertaining contrast – or contest – of acting styles and personalities. Who would wipe the floor with whom? Would Smith swan about, trailing clouds of neurotic grandeur? Or would Dench, less showy but more steely, carry off the honours? Alas, this question remained hypothetical.
The play withholds information about the characters to a degree that is irritating rather than intriguing, and avoids colourful language as if it were a faux pas. This brings out the worst in both actresses: Dench industriously pegs away at her role while Smith floats above hers with airy disregard. A few flashes – the sardonic little lizard-flick, for instance, that Smith gives a two-word phrase of apparent sympathy – show what they are capable of.
But the strain of being mysterious about nothing takes its toll and they aren't given much help by Howard Davies' listless production, which, for most of the time, resembles a Zen tennis match – there's a player on each side of the play, one serves, the other responds, but where's the ball?
At dusk one day on the Isle of Wight, Frances, a novelist, calls on Madeline and stays till dawn. She wants to learn the truth, she says, about the 25-year affair that Madeline had with her husband. (If Smith had played the betrayed wife and Dench the mistress, the characterisations might have had some piquancy).
Her reason, she is writing her memoirs. One might think this revelation would have Madeline up in arms, but, after a show of mild reluctance – The Breath of Life is as short on plausibility as on everything else – Madeline tells Frances how the affair began. Yet, despite Frances' probing, she has come to tell her story as much as to hear Madeline's.
Frances repeats what she said and what Martin, her husband, said during their rows – these speeches are as interesting and as sympathetic as any monologues in which a women demonstrates her moral superiority. Nor does Martin sound like someone anyone would want to meet, much less sleep with. But neither women seems troubled about Martin now. Madeline is happy in her work, and Frances concerned about a larger issue.
The irony of Hare's play is that, for all the silly little jibes at Americans, Frances is doing that very American thing – re-evaluating her life. No conclusion is reached, and the journey is a rather dull one. We don't even get the cat-fight such an encounter promises - Francis remains angry at Martin, not Madeline, despite the barbs the latter sends her way.
Laughter is as thin on the ground as theatrical sparks. The dialogue is a lot of whining and wheezing and moaning and musing, the observations commonplace - "readers today are interested only in tittle-tattle'' or clearly untrue: "The older you get,'' we're told, "the easier it is to be happy. It must be nature's way of preparing you for death.'' An even better way, one feels, is sitting through The Breath of Life.
This article appeared on The Independent web site on October 16, 2002.