AFTER THE DANCE

National Theatre

08.06.10

After The Dance is Rattigan’s lost masterpiece, its run cut short by the approach of World War II, just before the playwright’s writer’s block, the play excluded from his complete works.

If it’s going to be revived, there could be no better way than Thea Sharrock’s immaculately stylish production at the Lyttleton.

The first few seconds showed the quality, with the heavy curtains parting to let the daylight into the Scott-Fowlers’ London flat as the tabs opened. And the last few seconds of the curtain calls showed the width, with the actors shoulder-to-shoulder across the entire stage.

It’s an old-fashioned three-acter; the good thing about the well-made play is that you know what’s happening, and exactly who all these people are.

There were some predictable moments: Joan [Nancy Carroll] putting on a brave face, breaking down, walking out onto the fateful balcony.

The play revolves around the empty lives of ageing bright young things, the thirties set who followed the Lost Generation. They are “stinking” - not meaning rich, though they do have too much money, but drunk. They look back through a haze of alcohol to “the old days, the old parties”, where revellers really did swing naked from the chandeliers. Their speech is clipped, their dialogue bright and brittle.

Benedict Cumberbatch is David, failed historian, twelve years married to Joan. A tragic figure, partly redeemed by the dénouement. His parasitic friend, house guest and court jester was the superb Adrian Scarborough, with well-turned witticisms aplenty, but deep down a moral force for good and a wise counsel for his friends.

Their hedonism starkly contrasted with the upright Peter [John Heffernan in a beautifully judged performance, especially when he returns, a broken man] and his chaste girl-friend Helen, “fresh-faced interloper” and naively manipulative. Wonderfully well spoken in the prewar manner by Faye Castelow.

But all the parts were perfectly cast, from Lachlan Nieboer's bit of rough, through Juliet Howland's drug-fuelled aviatrix, to the redoubtable Miss Potter [Jenny Galloway].

Three aspects that made a special impact, compensating for some longueurs in the many duologues. The Avalon/Tosca music [Adrian Johnston], the spacious set [designer Hildegard Bechtler] allowing for some telling distances between the characters, and the chilling moment in the middle of Act Two, when David pours a drink and the raucous party mysteriously materialises around him.