Lovers at Versailles - Bernard Farrell

Dublin: Abbey Theatre
March 1 - May 4

loversVersailles.jpg (7646 bytes)

the play

Heatherly Cable Vest - handknit of 100% cotton

    In the program for Lovers at Versailles, playwright Billy Roche (On Such As We) praises Bernard Farrell for his attempt to represent "the mirage we call ‘middle class.’" The play is set in the household and attached corner shop of a comfortable but not wealthy Dublin family. The story concerns the eldest daughter, Anna (Tina Kellegher). Ten years previously she was approached at a night club by a pleasant, well-meaning young man and seemed about to begin a story all of her own. Yet now she is still single, being referred to as a ‘spinster’ by those around her, and is still firmly defined by the middle class milieu in which she was raised. Why has this woman remained here all these years? What happened to her life and what hope does she have of avoiding uncomplicated continuity for the rest of it?
    The play follows her recollections of the intervening years while also recounting the story of the days following her father’s death. His passing could be the catalyst for change, not least of all because the discovery of romantic letters from an unknown woman suggests not all was as it seemed throughout those years of agreeable stasis. He was a genial man, but his stable demeanor enabled his conceited wife to control and stifle the life of her elder daughter (the younger, who took after her, was encouraged more). Will his agreeable indecision and lurking specter of Alzheimer’s be his legacy for Anna or will the letters throw new light on the man which will help her to escape?
    Like its setting and characters, Lovers at Versailles is pleasant and entirely inconsequential. It evokes a world of relatively ordinary people working reasonably hard to maintain stability. The characters have emotional highs and lows, yes, but though the boat seems to rock there is never a sense that it might topple. These are people who, as Roche puts it "spurn myth and metaphor and are generally considered unworthy of art other than to wonder what it is worth". Their world is not rich with sub-text and intricacy. It is plain, complacent, and safe.
    The choice of setting leaves Farrell with only the light comedy route to follow, which he does. The result is mild, undemanding diversion. By shifting social strata by a factor of degrees Alan Ayckbourn (How the Other Half Loves) is usually able to employ satiric exaggeration. Declan Hughes did likewise with his relocation of Tartuffe to an affluent Dublin household with dynamics not unlike those presented here, but with more visible extremes which lent themselves to irony and criticism.
    Lovers at Versailles lacks any real sense of risk. It focuses on a central character whose defining characteristic is her sad but almost apathetic acceptance of her situation. Unpleasant though it may be, she does not seem to be suffering. She is mired in a recognizably middle class moment of hesitation, but seems neither particularly elated at the prospect of escape nor all that terrified of staying. The play gives no real sense of hope or fear with which to engage the emotions and inspire the soul. Even those displays of emotion which do occur feel affected, such as mother Clara’s (Barbara Brennan) constant complaints of illness which have more to do with getting her way than anything physical, or the screaming matches between younger sibling Renee Weldon and husband Keith McErlean which are simply played for laughs.
    While it has been carefully and professionally crafted and structured, presents the requisite amount of punchlines and comic situations, and generally provides its audience with a full evening of definitively middle brow entertainment, Lovers at Versailles is in no way compelling. Its vision of the Irish middle class is a depressingly prosaic one. In spite of hidden depths suggested by its preoccupation with misunderstanding and misinterpretation (given even in the title, which is derived from a misheard lyric from "Strangers in the Night"), there is nothing to feel or think about other than what you see; a world without myth and metaphor indeed.
    If there is a reason to see it in its current incarnation at the Abbey it is that whatever subtleties it has have been brought out in this production. By the time it reaches the amateur circuit, it will have degenerated into complete blandness. The performances are uniformly good, or at least effective in representing characters whose lack of nuance is part of the texture of the play. Kellegher is an ideal lead, able to capture a sense of disconnection which defines Anna’s plight. Brennan is equally believable as the domineering Clara, bringing the right amount of haughtiness to the role to make her self-pitying tirades convincing. Vincent McCabe makes an affable father figure, and has at least one ensemble scene in which he gets to deliver the most enjoyable one-liners without varying the naturalistic tone. Support from Weldon and McErlean is more exaggerated, but usually funnier as a result. McErlean gives a particularly good comic performance of a man who is far less intelligent than he hopes he is but who inwardly realizes the truth.