Critics praise 'splendid' Cusack in the Donmar's Splendour

Michael Coveney, WhatsOnStage

★★★

"The play itself is slightly infuriating and only sustained with the slightest veneer of tension. Here, Peter McKintosh's design is of an anodyne palatial bolthole with huge glass windows, red carpet and crushed ice on the floor. "

"One thing is clear in Robert Hastie's production, brilliantly lit by Lee Curran, with flashbulb effects between scenes: Micheleine knows the game is up, serenely recounting how she listens to her own Prada heels clacking along the corridor."

"The dense 95 minutes are never less than intriguing, and Cusack at least offers a disturbingly glamorous perspective on a dictatorship in decline and disarray."

Fiona Mountford, Evening Standard

★★★★

"Writer Abi Morgan has come a long way since Splendour premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe in the summer of 2000. This tightly wound four-hander more than merits revisiting and reminds us, in fact, of why Morgan was seized upon and whizzed off to other, more lucrative mediums."

"Director Robert Hastie does equally well with an all-female cast, eliciting an accomplished quartet of performances. Ashton, with her wide eyes concealing swirling inner passions, proves once more what a compelling actress she is."

"Cusack expertly captures the air of a first lady, all surface calm and turmoil buried underneath. In short, splendid."

Paul Taylor, Independent

★★★★

" We're in the opulent state residence of some unnamed but probably East European dictatorship where four women from very different backgrounds and cultures find themselves cooped up together on the snowy eve of civil war. "

"It's good to report that Robert Hastie's meticulous and mountingly mesmeric revival proves that it has stood the test of time. "

"The excellent cast have full measure of the edgy musicality of Morgan's script with its interior monologue asides. Strongly recommended."

Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph

★★★★

"This belated London premiere of Splendour left me wishing she would make more of her undoubted stage instincts."

"The outline is clear but Morgan scrambles our sense of what’s happening, when. The audience gets treated to snipey asides, prolonged addresses in which the characters confide their thoughts and the conceit of a language barrier that slows down the conversation."

"Rising director Robert Hastie, who did such brilliant work at the Donmar with the all-male My Night With Reg, scores a comparable hit here."

"Zawe Ashton and Michelle Fairley also impress as the materialistic interpreter and artistic hanger-on, one disdainful and impassive, the other demonstrative, both biding their time."

Michael Billington, Guardian

★★★★

"This early play, first seen at the Edinburgh Traverse in 2000, shows Morgan’s continuing fascination with the fragility of power and the unreliability of language. It is short, demanding and riveting."

"Sinéad Cusack‘s Micheleine is a totally plausible portrait of a woman who seeks to cover the disintegration of power through retreat into romantic memory. Michelle Fairley is full of burning intensity as the old friend who maintains a mask of affability in order to protect her children."

"It’s a gripping play that reminds one of Morgan’s abiding fascination with the fallibility of power and, even if attention is demanded, it is handsomely repaid."

Aleks Sierz, The Stage

★★★★

"The fractured structure of the play suggests the tensions between the characters, as the strains in the relationship between the dictator’s wife and her friend become clear."

"Robert Hastie’s excellent production has great clarity and drive, and his actors do him proud: Cusack’s regal but vulnerable wife contrasts with Fairley’s timid friend, while Ashton’s feisty interpreter and O’Reilly’s icy photographer are similarly well drawn. "

"The music of these four women combines to create an intriguing and compelling vision of a world teetering on the edge of destruction."

Splendour runs at the Donmar Warehouse until 26 September 2015.