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| The Breath of Life |
The Company of Ten is putting on the David Hare two-hander The Breath of Life, a powerful drama featuring two of its best actresses and directed by the experienced and much-respected Doreen Steward.
Not surprising therefore that not only has it sold out but there is a waiting list for tickets before the run ends this Saturday.
On the face of it The Breath of Life should not be as compelling as it is because it lacks any real action and digs deep into the psyche of the two characters.
It revolves around a few hours in the life of two women linked by their involvement with a man called Martin.
The audience never meets him but he is the third person on the stage in absentia without ever directly intruding into the mesmerising brief encounter between the two protagonists.
Lesley Gordon plays the spiky Madeleine, a retired museum curator living on the Isle of Wight where she appears to rejoice in her solitude, mistaking it for freedom.
She is the former lover of Martin who was married to Frances, a best-selling fiction writer played by Rosemary Goodman, and the father of her children. Martin has a relationship with Madeleine as his marriage to Frances falls apart.
Both Lesley and Rosemary turn in stunning performances in a punishing play which is unremitting in its demands on the performers.
They spark off each other convincingly as the higher moral ground switches from one to the other in a whirlwind of emotion and pathos which holds the audience in thrall.
By the end of a long night and a bittersweet morning, the two women have found some common ground and the values of the sisterhood are once again reaffirmed.
The Breath of Life is an odd play to have been written by a man and it would be easy to write if off as David Hare in touch with his feminine side. But it is essentially about a man, albeit one we never see, and the impact he has on the lives of two women and a third the audience only hears about.
It is challenging for the cast and for the audience and the type of play in which the Company of Ten excels. Bring on more of the same.
MADELEINE BURTON