The Family Reunion

Synopsis

Inspired by The Oresteia and written just before the outbreak of the Second World War this is a story of sin, redemption and the burden of responsibility. After eight years absence, Harry returns to the ancestral home to celebrate his mother's birthday. Tormented by a dark secret, he confides in Aunt Agatha only to discover that the family too has its own hidden demons.

Our Review:

26 November 2008

Is there sobbing in your chimney? Are there ghosts at your table? Are you aware that death will come as a mild surprise, a momentary shudder in a vast room? Welcome to the spooky world of T S Eliot’s The Family Reunion, a verse play to which you may easily become averse despite its incontrovertible theatricality.

Harry Monchesney (Samuel West), the heir to a cold northern fastness called Wishwood, returns home like Orestes after eight years away pursued by the Furies of grief, guilt and anxiety over the death of his wife. She disappeared over the side of a ship in the Mediterranean. As in the case of the late tycoon Robert Maxwell, it’s not clear if she slipped or was pushed.

Eliot himself thought that Harry was an insufferable prig, but West makes something really moving of his insistence that he is living a nightmare and that the rest of the family is weighed down with the triviality of everyday life. But his mother Amy, Lady Monchesney, is si...

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Latest User Review

rds - 3 January 2009:

The play is perhaps a difficut one in so far as it is terribly wordy with much of it in prose, so I know I flagged during the first half as it seemed, at times, to drone on. The second act seemed to me to be much better. However, in the hands, or should I say mouths, of the likes of Gemma Jones, Paul Shelley, Anna Cateret, Christopher Benjamin, William Guant and the sublime Penelope Wilton it became a masterclass in acting, even if the story, at times, was a little hard to follow I think I got the gist of what Eliot was driving at? I ought not forget to mention Samuel West too who is a revelation, what a fine actor he has become - a chip off the old block there. And also dear ol' Una Stubbs who turns in a good performance as a dotty sister. I wondered, afterwards, whether it would have been better if Eliot hadn't just written it as a straight play instead of part prose with a "greek" chorus, but then if he had done, so much of the dramatic and mysteriousness of the piece would have been lost. It just means we, the audience, have to work a bit harder to enjoy the play, but it is worth the effort. ...

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