Synopsis In Serenading Louie two young, successful and seemingly happy couples are trying to deal with the shadows that haunt their marriages. Carl and Mary are college sweethearts (the football star marries the homecoming queen). Mary is having an affair with Carl's colleague. Carl is desperately trying to convince himself he doesn't care. Meanwhile, Carl's best friend Alex has tired of his chatty and insecure wife, Gabrielle, and has fallen for a 17-year-old college student. When both couples are forced to face the truth about their marriages, their lives are tragically changed forever. In a scorching comment on crumbling American dreams. Lanford Wilson's powerful drama charts the destruction of two young couples as they face up to the deception and infidelity of their friendship.
The Donmar Warehouse last week dusted off Lanford Wilson’s rarely seen 1970 Off-Broadway play Serenading Louie, in a production, directed by Simon Curtis, which opened on 16 February 2010 (previews from 11 February) and continues until 27 March.
Wilson’s four-hander paints a portrait of two suburban American couples. Friends since college, Carl and Alex, are struggling to deal with the harsh realities of adulthood as they enter their thirties. Disillusioned by work and fighting to keep their marriages alive, they’re desperately trying to make sense of it all.
The cast comprises American American Jason Butler Harner, making his UK stage debut as Alex, alongside Irishman Jason O'Mara as Carl, and Britons Charlotte Emmerson and Geraldine Somerville as their wives. The production is designed by Peter McKintosh and, following the Donmar, tours to Salford, Leicester and Truro.
While Serenading Louie found a firm fan in Whatsonstage.com’s Michael Coveney, who greeted it “a modern American classic” that is “a pleasure to discover”, other overnight critics sang a much different tune. Despite echoes of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and comparisons with Edward Albee, Alan Ayckbourn and Tennessee Williams, Lanford Wilson’s “deracinated”, “vague”, “dreary and desperate” work was widely viewed as a poor relation to those of other, greater playwrights. There was, however, high praise for the “truly heroic acting” of the company.
Michael Coveney on Whatsonstage.com (four stars) – “Lanford Wilson’s 1970 Off-Broadway play proves a real corker … It’s given a tremendously taut and enthralling production by Simon Curtis … The acting is stylish and magnificent ... visiting American actor Jason Butler Harner is superb, both haunted and driven, as the shooting star political lawyer Alex whose wife Gabrielle, played with unrecognisable, vulnerable hesitancy by Charlotte Emmerson, is talking to the roast and teetering on the brink … this play has marked elements of Edward Albee and Neil LaBute … It’s all brilliantly done. The Donmar has surely revealed a modern American classic, and one that is as much a surprise as it is a pleasure to discover.”
Rhoda Koenig in the Independent (three stars) – “The play feels as deracinated as the characters, the first act especially vague. Wilson's dialogue is often delicate, but more often thin. His looking-backward play lacks the obsessive quest for the moment life took a wrong turn or the ruthless psychological cross-examination of earlier and later playwrights … Simon Curtis' sensitive production has excellent performances from Jason Butler Harner, the only American, as well as from Jason O'Mara and Geraldine Somerville, the last of whom catches perfectly the lofty but dangerous obliviousness of the rich. Charlotte Emmerson's Gaby, though fine once she starts expressing the rage it has taken nearly all her energy to deny, seems, until then, to be dim-witted or stoned rather than repressed … The actors seem to miss an essential American vigour and openness. There is an overly careful quality to both acting and play which, finally, leaves the audience as detached from these privileged but empty characters as they are from themselves.”
Charles Spencer in the Daily Telegraph (two stars) –“Of all the plays in all the world, why on earth did Michael Grandage choose this one? That was the question that nagged at me last night throughout the American playwright Lanford Wilson’s dreary and finally desperate drama … It is merely grindingly dull for two hours, before turning melodramatic in the final 20 minutes, with sudden revelations and anguished confessions … Wilson tries to give his jaded scenario some zip by the technical device of using a single stage set to represent the couple’s two separate living rooms, a trick Ayckbourn has deployed with far more invention. Some of the characters also deliver embarrassing asides to the audience … One only has to think of Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Pinter’s Betrayal, which both explore similar dramatic territory, to realise just how feeble and underpowered Wilson’s play is … Simon Curtis directs an efficient but curiously soulless production and the cast do what they can ... Jason O'Mara has a wounded humanity about him that is as close to as this play comes to warmth, heart or real drama. It’s not, however, nearly enough to save the show.”
Lyn Gardner in the Guardian (two stars) – “It is telling that the best and most emotionally authentic moment in Lanford Wilson's talky 1970 play, which is relocated in Simon Curtis' production to the early 70s despite looking like the mid-60s in Peter McKintosh's design, is silent … This is the stuff of boulevard drama, and dressing it up with Ayckbourn-style tricks of two couples in one space, or theatrical asides, doesn't make it any more interesting. The second act, with its Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? echo is slightly more perky, not least because Mary delivers some deliciously barbed observations. But this is navel-gazing stuff saved only by a pertinent use of music and some truly heroic acting. The cast hurl the dialogue at each other as if it is a hand grenade, but the failure of the words to explode even during the final melodramatic moments is symptomatic of this play's ashen emptiness.”
Benedict Nightingale in The Times (three stars) – “The characters whinge with a determination that we British, who are globally acknowledged to be ace whingers, would have to work overtime to match … Well before the end I was itching to shout to them to stop and to beg Lanford Wilson to bring on some positive, resilient characters, like Chekhov’s three sisters or his Uncle Vanya … The play is too wordy, but many of the words are sophisticated and subtle … The acting is consistently so strong you overlook the play’s faults, which would also include a failure adequately to establish the political and social context and an ending that even Jason O'Mara can’t save from seeming melodramatic … O’Mara gets the mix of good nature and unease all right and, briefly, the rage. The growing darkness deep within eludes him – as it would almost every actor on both sides of the Atlantic and, probably, the Pacific too.”
Oh no, surely not another bunch of 30-somethings going to pieces in the dissolution of dreams market? Yes. But Lanford Wilson’s 1970 Off-Broadway play (re-written for the Circle Rep in 1976) proves a real corker.
And it’s given a tremendously taut and enthralling production by Simon Curtis, the former Royal Court director (notably of Jim Cartwright’s Road), returning to the stage after a long and distinguished stint in television (Cranford and Stephen Poliakoff films).
Two Chicago couples cross-fade into each others’ lives on the same utilitarian sitting room set of sofa, standard lamp, drinks cabinet, French windows and Balinese puppet on the wall. Director Curtis and designer Peter McKintosh, artfully abetted by Guy Hoare’s lighting and Adam Cork’s soundtrack, make the intersections both graceful and plausible.
The acting is stylish and magnificent from a cast you’re not quite sure who they are: visiting American actor Jason Butler Harner is superb, both haunted and driven, as the shooting star political lawyer Alex whose wife Gabrielle, played with unrecognizable, vulnerable hesitancy by Charlotte Emmerson, is talking to the roast and teetering on the brink.
Carl, his buddy and fellow alpha male - this play has marked elements of Edward Albee and Neil LaBute - is a going-to-seed college quarterback who’s a successful construction developer and who, shockingly in Jason O'Mara’s flip delivery, is bugged by a child’s tragedy and believes people can be brought together in extreme circumstances only.
Carl has discovered that his wife Mary - whom Geraldine Somerville, best known these days for being in the Harry Potter movies, plays as a dead ringer for Julianne Moore at her most hard-edged and soignée - is having an affair with his own chief accountant.
The foursome return from a screening of Deep Throat (“I’ve never felt so over-dressed,” says Mary) after Alex has complained about being “raped” by his wife every night and owned up to his affair with a 17-year-old girl.
These are people adrift in their own quagmire of sexual degradation and disgust; only Gaby can genuinely claim to be a victim, and it’s a rum and rueful quadrille they dance out. There is, inevitably, a price to pay. A tragic climax is followed by the prospect of endless night-time desolation.
It’s all brilliantly done. The Donmar has surely revealed a modern American classic, and one that is as much a surprise as it is a pleasure to discover.
The rare sight of empty sets at the Donmar made me worried that Michael Grandage had had one of his occasional lapses of judgement. In fact Serenading Louie (incomprensible title) proved to be highly rewarding but I can easily see why some people will not agree with me (including Gareth James whose opinion I frequently share). Lanford Wilson demonstrates an uncanny knowledge of the inner thinking of two married men and some of his dialogue is brilliantly, if uncomfortably insightful. He is less at home with his female characters and the scenes between both couples are less convincing than those between Carl and Alex. The Ayckbournesque technique of using one set to represent two homes and having characters talking across and between locations can be a bit confusing but it's well worth sticking with it until the devastating finale. All four actors really get inside the skin of their characters: Jason Butler Harner is unknown to me but he proves to be one of the best American imports since Kevin Spacey and Jason O'Mara appears to be weirdly channelling Mel Gibson in both voice and looks. The play can be seen as very wordy and obtuse but I love Neil LaBute and I am sure Wilson must have been an influence on him. Manay people will really dislike this but I found it riveting and an unexpected triumph. - David Baxter
11 Mar 10
Twenty years ago I saw my last Lanford Wilson play. It was Burn This at Hampstead Theatre, with John Malkovitch and Juliet Stevenson, I thought it was rather good and have often wondered why there haven't been any other Lanford Wilson plays in London (?) since. Well, this one might give us a clue! I found Serenading Louie a most irrelevant and pointless play. It was impossible to empathise with or care about any of the characters. Nothing interesting happens. Acceptable performances and the nostalgia one gets from a 70's set ('ooh, I had one of those') doesn't really sustain one for 2 hours 15 mins. What was going through those bright minds at the Donmar when they thought we might be remotely interested in this tosh? - Gareth James
09 Mar 10
I struggled to think of something nice to say about this play and unlike the first reviewer liked the set. The carpet was particularly interesting.
A rare mis-fire for the Donmar. - addicted to theatre
08 Mar 10
spot on review. just come from the matinee and loved it. - jilly
18 Feb 10
I thoroughly LOVED it! I went with much trepidation (thinking it was only about affluent American angst) but then was happily surprised and drawn in in very unexpected ways. It could lose a five minutes but that was minor given some of the lines I'm quoting from two nights ago. It isn't everyone's evening of theatre but it is a fascinating lesson in nuance and subtle behavior which makes the Donmar the ideal place to see it. The performances are superb across the board, and the two men in particular were astounding. If you like intense drama and Madmen, you should go. - Michael
17 Feb 10
Dull, drab, poorly performed, weakly directed. Dreadful set. Not a hint of LaBute in it; no style, no substance. Saw at least fourteen people walking out of the preview I saw. - William
Re-opened in 1992. Seats 254. 1999 - Ambassador Theatre Group takes over from the Associated Capital Theatres as the landlord of the Donmar Warehouse. 2002 - Michael Grandage succeeds Sam Mendes as Artistic Director of the Donmar. Nick Frankfort succeeds Caro Newling as Executive Producer.
Whatsonstage.com - Discount London theatre tickets, theatre news and reviews, Theatre videos, Theatre discussion, National Theatre Listings. Covering London's West End, all of Theatreland and all UK theatre. The best
for London Theatre Ticket Discounts.
