The Habit of Art, in a production by Nicholas Hytner from 2010, takes place in an afternoon rehearsal of a play called Caliban's Day. The Director's been called away to Leeds, two actors have to do a Chekov matinee, so can't be there. Nevertheless the PA (Frances de la Tour) decides to do a run through. The writer of the play unexpectedly turns up, ramping up the querulous tension in the cast. The play centres on WH Auden ( Richard Griffiths) when he was professor in Oxford and a meeting he had there with his former friend Benjamin Britten ( Alex Jennings). In many ways this play within a play format, is Bennett at his most multifacted and layered. Actors step in and out of character, they question motives, there own, their characters, the playwright's, what the point of the play is, literary societies views of them and of itself, how the itself play should end. What they are going to do after rehearsal finishes.
It attempts to cover a lot of ground, sex, death, art, biography, creative muses, that it can appear a bit hit and miss in its targeting of hypocrisy or morally dubious tendencies. Auden's often savage cruelty and Britten's liking for young boys are pointed out but never stabbed directly in the heart. There is just an embarrassed silence no one knows quiet how to fill. Perhaps the point is that once someone is lauded the habit of art is to overlook, sanitise or even reprehensibly explain away a persons moral failings, because there's an individual's creative reputation to uphold - there was after all the sublime art, lets not forget that my dears, in our rush to judge the dead, and tut tut. Art survives trumps allegations of pedophile behaviour. One is seen as eternal the other as transitory. There are unasked, and therefore unanswered questions here, concerning how we respond and deal with the imperfections and unconscionable actions of people whose art, music or performances we nonetheless admire or are in awe of. Does one have to rule out the other?
Bennett as always is very consummately served by a company of actors who appear frequently in his plays. Here its Richard Griffiths, Alex Jennings and Frances de la Tour, all fluent in his style and use of language. Each chosen, even newcomers Adrian Scarborough and Steven Wright, because they can play to a type he requires.
I've seen quite a few Alan Bennett plays over the years, witty, occasionally pokey, but generally good natured, like well brought up children. One often gets the feeling he is not temperamentally willing to allow his pen to fully land a punch, without cushioning the blow a bit with some whimsy infused sarcasm. One can very easily see that he gives voice through his characters to how really pissed off he is about a lot of contemporary life and views. Well, one can see it, but not often feel it. You are always greatly titilated, which makes any criticism one may wish to voice feel ungrateful or even churlish. I do love his plays, even though I frequently feel incredibly short changed by them.
CARROT REVIEW - 5/8
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