Six Degrees of Separation
A young black man claiming to be the son of Sidney Poitier inveigles himself into the apartment of a Manhattan art dealer and his wife offering them bit parts in the film of Cats (cue superior laughter in the Old Vic stalls) which his father is preparing to make…
While now seeming ever so slightly passé, Six Degrees of Separation, John Guare’s brilliant play of the early 1990s – what happened to that animation film of Cats by the way; wasn’t Tom Stoppard scripting it? – still whisks you into a maelstrom of snobbery, racism, art as a commodity, rebellion among the offspring and social satire.
The double-sided Kandinsky still hovers above, but Jonathan Fensom’s sleek apartment design now creates a wall-to-wall Mark Rothko deep purple cocoon that is punctured with changes of location and general upset. This play was so New York with the great Stockard Channing in the Lincoln Center, at the Royal Court (in 1992, opposite Adrian Lester as the trickster) and on film.
With a droll and stylish Lesley Manville as the Manhattanite Ouisa, Anthony Head as her husband Flan, and new boy Obi Abili as the intruder Paul, the play still stings and snaps, but it’s not the same. The real-life hoaxer, David Hampton, died of Aids in 2003, thus killing another element in the play’s appeal; this kind of thing could still be happening.
One really clever thing about the play, smartly directed by David Grindley, is that it springs back on itself, retaining a current vivacity as well as an anecdotal fascination. It’s wonderful how the stage keeps filling with new people, following a serpentine course with sub-narratives until Ouisa and Paul come to some kind of impossible recognition of each other.
Ouisa and Flan are first trying to fix money with a South African colleague (Ian Redford) to buy a Cezanne when the apparently mugged Paul barges in. Next thing, there’s a babble of disaffected grown-up kids on stage, Paul’s exposed with a naked hustler – “He might have a gun on him” screams Ouisa (where?) – and we’re unravelling the cultural significance a propos of assassins of Catcher in the Rye.
It’s a wry, witty play – good to see the London theatre keeping faith in Guare and Wallace Shawn (who was given a season last year at the Royal Court), two outstanding contemporary American dramatists; Shawn next, Mr Spacey? – densely enjoyable at just 90 minutes running time, and with more than a passing appeal to funders and liberal-minded sponsors everywhere. Perfect, then, for the Old Vic.
