Wild Orchids

Synopsis

Elegant, humorous and steeped in the glamour of the 1930s, Wild Orchids is the story of a prince who continues to mourn for Leocadia, a beautiful Parisian singer who died tragically after only three blissful days of love. Written in 1940, this stylish romantic comedy was first performed in London in the 1950s, where it ran successfully for two years under the title Time Remembered.

Our Review:

10 June 2002

"Thanks to Molière," wrote Jean Anouilh, "the true French theatre is the only one that is not gloomy, in which we laugh like men at war with out misery and our horror. This humour is one of France's messages to the world." Humour and linguistic elegance is certainly at the centre of Timberlake Wertenbaker's new translation of Anouilh's Leocadia, a hit in 1940 on the Parisian boulevards. In this lyrical fantasy, a prince whose lover, the famous diva Léocadia, has died tragically finds new romance with a young milliner who bears a striking resemblance.

Yet this is more than a tale of love lost and found, and after a lengthy (some may say, overlong) first act exposition, the play reveals itself to be about what in recent years has fashionably become known as 'false memory syndrome'- that is to say, some of our memories are true, some are a mixture of fact and fantasy, and some are just plain manufactured lies.

In Anouilh's absurdist, Alice in Wonderland world, [Pa...

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