Skylight

David Hare’s Skylight is a truly beautiful play, perfectly structured and marrying political ideology with a love affair that cannot be rekindled. It has been a favourite of mine since its inception more than twenty years ago.

Tom is a 50 something “bog ordinary” working class man who has dragged himself up to be a successful capitalist with all the trappings (Including a veneer of class). Kyra is a 30 something daughter of an upper middle-class solicitor who has embraced the “have-nots” with idealistic fervour by teaching disadvantaged kids in a grungy school and living in an even grungier flat. Both have betrayed Tom’s now dead wife, whose dying days were spent watching the world through  the skylight (hence the title) in her bedroom. Hare skilfully, and often with great wit, explores both sides and also explores mind versus heart with a central question of “is what we feel (love) sufficient to overcome who we are (mind, intellect – according to Descartes) and can guilt and love co-exist?”  Hare’s arguments, both political and personal, are as powerful now as they were twenty years ago, and they carry with them the warning that what is done cannot be undone. Its timing, at the time of our Federal election, is perfect and forces us to look at who we are and who we want to be. It’s a brilliant play and almost production proof. Almost.

A director explained to me that “Good directing is helping the actors to unlock the truth – and then getting out of its way.” There’s a lot of shouting, frenetic movement and wild gesticulations on stage (all very UN-English), but very little truth, and truth is essential for Hare’s text.

Director Dean Bryant has had great success in Musical Theatre. His directing style is wide and shallow, and it works there. Drama requires narrow and deep. Whenever the play needs focus, stillness, intensity and delving into the subtext (what are these two REALLY thinking/feeling?) Bryant’s blocking becomes more peripatetic - it’s a wonder the actors don’t bump into each other and knock each other out. Bryant’s “Look at me … I’m the director” stamp on every move, every second, damages not just the play but the acting.

Toby Wallace…as Tom’s son Eddie, doesn’t have a lot to do but does escape unscathed in this, his MTC debut.

Anna Samson is a fine actress, but she speaks with an accent that even the Queen, fifty years ago and with a mouthful of plums, couldn’t replicate. The clipped tones of elocution lessons have nothing to do with Hare’s Kyra, and they stymie the actress’s ability to express herself. Moreover – if Kyra really spoke in this totally unrealistic quasi upper-class accent, she would get the shit kicked out of her by the kids at her school. It’s a classic case of the director using a prop (an accent) rather than exploring  subtext in depth.

Colin Friels has been a much-loved actor for decades, and it’s painful to see him in this role. Tom is supposed to have adopted a veneer of class, the “barrow boy” has been sublimated, but always simmers beneath the surface. Bryant has decided that Tom is still a yobo in all respects  - wide and shallow. Consequently there is no opportunity to see what lies beneath the surface - it’s all there up front, thrown around like custard in a slapstick comedy. There was an air of desperation in Tom on opening night, but it seemed to be Friels’ desperation rather than the character’s. Whoever made the decision that Tom was Jewish and gave him an accent that was part Harold Steptoe and part Fagin made a grave mistake. Whoever told him to shout his lines and be aggressive - when Tom has got to where he is through schmoozing and charm, has made a bigger mistake. Friels’ Tom is charmless – and it wasn’t a surprise that he dried three times and had to angrily call for prompts (something I have never seen in more than sixty years of theatre going.) He doesn’t own his space : he isn’t centred; there is conflict between the actor and the character.

Dale Ferguson’s set rises five stories and works for about 30 seconds as an overview with vandalised flats and poverty galore. But this ISN’T a council flat - it can’t be - Kyra wouldn’t qualify for one as a teacher with a regular income and a single person. Much like our Housing Commission, Council flats have people on waiting lists for many years. Besides, the text says quite clearly that Kyra’s friend downstairs needed a tenant for the upstairs flat. Just another decision to make things obvious rather than subtle. Even the sound-scape has no regard for truth. A sole train is heard at around 6am and we hear it loudly, yet there are no train sounds the evening before nor through the night. Either make them regular and consistent, or take dramatic license and ignore them altogether.

David Hare’s Skylight is a beautiful play. I promise. See the National Theatre production on film.

Coral Drouyn

Photographer: Jeff Busby