STEVIE

STEVIE

Chichester Festival Theatre at the Minerva

07.05.2014

A parlour forever Fifties. Antimacassars, whatnot, dog-eared sheet-music, reeds and moon-pennies [honesty] on the upright piano.

“All aboard for a day in the suburbs!” - Palmers Green, to be precise, home to Peggy [Stevie] Smith and her dear Lion Aunt, brought to life on the stage in a seamless blend of memoir, poetry and dialogue by Hugh Whitemore.

Lovingly directed by Christopher Morahan, this is the kind of theatre Chichester does uniquely well. Not only Simon Higlett's evocative design, but the three pitch-perfect performances.

Zoe Wanamaker is the poet, neurotic and drily droll, awkward of posture, devoid of fashion sense, issue of an unsuitable marriage, lingering hopefully, smoking too much, escaping at the last moment from the drowned submarine of conformity, weeping in the bathtub. A funny, poignant performance, capturing the physique as well as the psychology of this lonely pocket Hercules.

Lynda Baron the Lion Aunt – a mane of grey wavy locks bringing a Yorkshirewoman's disdain of stuff and nonsense, eagerly anticipating her niece's approval of the Yorkshire brew, enjoying junket with brandy and cream, and at the last sleeping her life away in her favourite armchair, which her niece will briefly inhabit before leaving the suburbs, welcoming the Friend at the End of the World, penning her last poem as Life's railway train gives one last mournful whistle.

Every Man, watching from the parlour's shadows, quoting the odd verse, is Chris Larkin. He also plays the chaps in Stevie's life, most memorably the car-owning friend and literary critic. It is he who gives us her best-known work, Not Waving But Drowning, as she stands stock still, a vertical cigarette burning down like a votive candle.

Fourteen-year-old, why must you giggle and dote,
Fourteen-year-old, why are you such a goat?
I'm fourteen years old, that is the reason,
I giggle and dote in season.

The Conventionalist.

STEVIE

Heads First Theatre Company at Brentwood Theatre

17.10.10

In the drab clutter of the suburban 1950s, Ercol chairs, bakelite wireless, Stevie Smith lives out her weary life.

Hugh Whitemore's 1977 play is a clever blend of biography, autobiography and of course poetry. Most of the words are Stevie's own. The first act is heavy with narrative and reminiscence, but after the interval the drama moves up a gear. The Lion Aunt is frailer, ailing, and Stevie herself more and more fixated on death.

Marjorie Dunn's production flowed smoothly, following the poet's magpie mind and the daily trivia of tax bills, teacups, junket and York ham.

She had an A-list cast to work with. Glenda Abbott gave a masterclass performance as the Palmers Green poet. She relished the set pieces – her visit to the Palace, the bulrushes, the Tintoretto – but also excelled in her exchanges with her aunt, and with her suburban suitor Freddie. He was played by Alan Thorley, who was also an interviewer and a kind of narrator; his was the voice of Not Waving But Drowning.

Margaret Corry was the Lion Aunt. Never really at home with the Hull accent, she was at her best in the later scenes, feebler and fonder, absent-minded and anxious, sleeping her life away in her favourite armchair.

It says much for this production that the unlikely, complex relationship at the heart of the piece was both moving and amusing, and by the end we felt we had shared the private life of this most secluded of poets and her unhappy muse.