LONDON — And there they stand, sternly frozen in facing profile, like pillars in some temple to the histrionic arts. For those who worship at the shrines of theater and celebrity, it is indeed a holy moment. Judi Dench and Maggie Smith — both Dames! both Oscar winners! — are squaring off downstage at the Royal Haymarket Theater in the immortal roles of Wife and Mistress.
Is it any wonder that this play, David Hare's "Breath of Life," has become the most sought-after ticket in town? And that furs and Burberrys at the Haymarket outnumber the denim and down jackets more common to the West End these days? Here, after all, is a production that unites two of the world's most celebrated actresses and in a vehicle that recalls the tasty schmaltz of vintage chick flicks with stars like Bette Davis and Mary Astor.
Audience members who turn out for the promised package of prestige and prurience probably should not be disappointed. But the miracle of "The Breath of Life," which recently extended its run into January, is that both its leading, uh, dames are giving performances that do not seem cast in bronze, inflated by camp or tarnished with mildew.
Even more miraculously, Dame Judi and Dame Maggie actually make you believe — at least while you're watching them — that they are portraying people of substance. "I always felt there was more to me than fiction would allow," Madeleine, Dame Maggie's character, says to Frances, the novelist played by Dame Judi. Madeleine adds, "I go a little deeper." If she does, it is only because Dame Maggie makes the extra effort to dig beneath her lines.
A recent visit to London found only vague flickers of inspiration and originality among the latest crop of plays, either from writers as estimable as Mr. Hare and Brian Friel or directors who included Trevor Nunn and Peter Hall. Yet the visit provided an invaluable course in how acting can transform a play, whether by turning paper into flesh or poetry into leaden prose.
Certainly this past year has been the starriest in the West End in decades, recalling that distant time when names like Gielgud, Coward, Olivier and Leigh regularly blazed from marquees. Madonna, Eddie Izzard, Jonathan Pryce, Gwyneth Paltrow, Woody Harrelson and Kyle McLachlan have all been seen on West End stages in 2002.
The week I was here found a host of other bold-face performers in significant roles, from Glenn Close ("A Streetcar Named Desire") to Brenda Blethyn ("Mrs. Warren's Profession"), from the British film heartthrob Sean Bean ("Macbeth") to the action American television heartthrob Gillian Anderson ("What the Night Is For").
Seeing these performances side by side confirmed that displaced starlight is not in itself enough to illuminate a whole stage (e.g., Ms. Anderson), and that a major actress in a major play is not a winning combination when the part doesn't fit (e.g., Ms. Close). No matter what evidence British television is laying out to the contrary — "Celebrity Big Brother" was much in the news while I was here — it is by no means true that a star is a star is a star.
And no matter how eloquent a playwright's words, and all the plays I saw were exceptionally word driven, they don't acquire a full pulse until the right person speaks them in the right way. Mr. Hare's title "The Breath of Life" nicely defines that essential quality. It seems telling that the most rewarding productions I saw were of plays that, with other casts, would have been tedious indeed.
That certainly includes "The Breath of Life." This latest drama from the author of "Plenty" and "Skylight" festoons the creakiest of situations, in which a wife confronts her husband's longtime mistress, with conversational volleys about the nature of fiction, the fear of aging and the waning of youthful idealism, a subject especially dear to Mr. Hare.
As smartly shaped as the lines often are, there's an inescapable feeling that you are sitting through the dramatic equivalent of a Chinese menu, moving thematically from Column A to Column B. Yet under the direction of Howard Davies, which both fulfills and transcends audience expectations, the actresses manage to invest the air with both a crackle of tension and a particularity of presence without falling back on old tricks.
As an acerbic, resolutely independent specialist in Islamic art, Dame Maggie tempers the extravagant eccentricities for which she is famous and as a result has seldom seemed sexier. In a relatively underwritten role, Dame Judi finds a fire in her character's silences that speaks of bewildered anger not just at a husband's betrayal but at all the losses that time brings. If there is an assembly-kit quality to Mr. Hare's script, Ms. Dench and Ms. Smith work with hidden diligence at transforming the generic into the individual.
Although the article continues to discuss other current plays, I snipped it because it is not relevant to this site.
Thanks to Delda White for sending me this article, which appeared in the NY Times on December 4, 2002.