Maths Tutor
Anthony Clark‘s new regime at the helm of Hampstead Theatre gets off to a poor, plodding start with The Maths Tutor, an unconvincingly drawn domestic drama about two adolescent best friends whose parents employ a private tutor to help coach them in their GCSE Maths.
But when one of the boys levies a false allegation against the tutor, this cosy little world is suddenly shattered as a bigger true fact emerges. Clare McIntyre‘s play is difficult to say too much about without giving away the central surprise, though in Clark’s own leaden production everything is signposted so clearly that it gives itself away.
It’s an evening in which one could actively feel the energy draining from the audience as it tried and failed to engage with the world on stage. It’s the kind of play and production where derisive laughter is sometimes the only appropriate reaction to some of the revelations and responses, and there was plenty of that on the press night.
Patrick Connellan‘s set – comprising a jumble of eight intersecting wooden frames – isn’t specific, and neither is the play: in an unfolding array of scenes about bigotry, lies, friendship and parenting, it covers plenty of bases but doesn’t alight on anything revelatory.
In the dire circumstances, the cast do heroic work to attempt to try to keep it afloat. Sally Dexter, one of Britain’s best but most underrated stage actresses, has her work cut out for her as the single, estate agent mother of the boy who falsely accuses the tutor, but even she can’t make us believe the character for a moment. As the other couple, Tricia Kelly and Christopher Ravenscroft have an even harder task as the couple whose cosy domesticity is in fact a lie. Meanwhile, as the maths tutor, Martin Wenner‘s role is not so much a fully realised character as a plot device. The play is only marginally more successful in the two adolescent performances, whom Ben McKay and Nicholas Figgis are able to render at least believable.
For a theatre whose mission is new writing, Clark is going to have to find far better examples of it in the future. Let’s hope that, just as Trevor Nunn began his National Theatre regime with a new writing dud in Frank McGuinness‘ Mutabilitie, this is merely an unfortunate but temporary blip.
– Mark Shenton
