THE VERTICAL HOUR
DIRECTOR: Fred Abrahamse
CAST: Michael Richard, Richard Gau, Jackie Rens, Jaco van Rensburg, Sinakho Zokuta
VENUE: Theatre on the Bay
UNTIL: September 27
RATING: ****
SOME plays engage the heart, some the mind, and occasionally there is one like David Hare’s The Vertical Hour which engages both, to create stimulating theatre.
Under Fred Abrahamse’s deft direction, the five-strong cast serve their opulent script with panache; the plethora of throw-away lines delights and disconcerts the audience in equal measure as the play’s issues are teased out with a candour bordering on the ruthless.
These issues are both personal (the characters all have a past that needs to be addressed) and political (the question being whether one nation has the right to interfere in another’s conflict, however benevolently).
When Nadia, ex- war correspondent turned academic, accompanies her lover to meet his father in Wales, she little suspects the impact this encounter will have on her future; and the pivotal point of the drama comes at the vertical hour when all is silent save for the verbal exchange between two people with different world-views.
Facing each other in this riveting confrontation are Nadia and Oliver, her potential father-in-law – and Jackie Rens (Nadia) is perfectly matched against Michael Richard (Oliver). The latter gives a magisterial performance as the GP in a small, remote community where he has chosen to end his career in medicine; Rens has taken the measure of her role to portray a complicated woman, at once naive and highly intelligent, with authority.
Richard Gau, as Nadia’s lover Philip, manages to convince in a difficult part; his character might appear insipid in comparison with those of the leads, but Gau’s understated portrayal subtly underpins their dominance.
A gem of a cameo is offered by Sinakho Zokuta as Terri in the final scene. Gifted, disillusioned, and emotional after her broken romance, this young student is at a crossroads, like her lecturer (Nadia).
Their exchange is warm, amusing, and relevant to the themes of The Vertical Hour.
Theatre on the Bay has a stage exactly suited to the intimacy of this play: the set is simple but evocative, with stylised British and American flags flanking the action and suggesting the difference in mindset between these nations – a fitting backdrop to the playing off of cynical wisdom versus idealistic aspiration.
Vintage Hare, highly recommended.