Edge
King's Head Theatre, London

Sylvia
Christine Jeffs

Natasha Hulugalle

There is a tendency to despise the cult of Sylvia Plath. To show curiosity about her suicide is deemed pornographic and unscholarly. It is an interest only suitable for angsty teenagers clutching copies of The Bell Jar.

This prevailing disapproval has ensured Plath's status as a literary protected species. Naturally the fear is that without such protection she will be remembered more for her suicide and marriage than for her poetry. Yet we are not so squeamish in scrutinising the private lives of other big literary names from that era. The quirks of Philip Larkin, and his early preoccupation with lesbian schoolgirls are a constant source of gossip and fascination. Likewise, in her autobiography Slipstream, Elizabeth Jane Howard neglects her own original talent as a novelist so that she can describe a seemingly endless list of affairs with such celebrities as Laurie Lee, Cecil Day-Lewis and Kingsley Amis.

Perhaps it is that these writers fail to inspire the same fervently melodramatic passion that Plath inspires in her admirers. We also see their exploits as part of an image of British literary life in the 1950s and 60s, or a phase that they all passed through like adolescence. Plath doesn't conform to that kind of jolly, bohemian ideal, and the thought of her suicide is messy and disturbing. This attitude to Plath is also about Ted Hughes: to defend one is to accuse the other. To pass judgement on their private lives is still a taboo subject.

This is why any dramatised account of Plath will always risk rejection and ridicule from critics and experts. It is impossible to resist drawing on her depression and marriage, yet to do so is to invite criticism. Thus directors and writers are forced into a corner. Christine Jeffs, director of Sylvia, was so nervous of making any kind of judgement that her film is reduced to a series of artfully lit shots of Gwyneth Paltrow looking defeated and sorrowful.

At the other extreme is Paul Alexander, writer and director of Edge, a one-woman play imagining the last hours that Plath spent alive. He has none of the scruples of Jeffs, and Edge is two hours of defiant ranting. Sensitive and reputable critics will hate this play, and that in itself is a source of perverse pleasure. Alexander is either bold or stupid, and although his play is sometimes crass, the gamble often works. Thanks to his choice of actress (Angelica Torn), some of the more absurdly hysterical lines are shaped into a simple, powerful performance.

An interesting aspect of Edge is Paul Alexander's attempt to reclaim an American poet from a perceived British grasp. His Plath wails to ear-splitting excess, but it is an unapologetic and shameless rage. In contrast, Sylvia suffers from Christine Jeffs' deferential restraint. For fear of condemning Ted Hughes or asserting any reason for Plath's depression, Jeffs has made a film in the style of a one-off BBC2 period drama telling of a neurotic woman failing to match the talent of her husband. Everything looks correct and stylish but it is a hollow experience. Jeffs' fear of demonising Hughes (Daniel Craig) has reduced him to dull silence, incapable of inspiring any emotion let alone acting as a muse.

Poetry doesn't have a starring role often, but when it does you wish otherwise. The sight of Gwyneth rocking with anguish as she reads 'Daddy' to Al Alvarez is just one embarrassing example. Paul Alexander also tried to incorporate 'Daddy' into Edge, and the effect was an excruciating end to the most compelling scene in the play. Both Jeffs and Alexander obviously thought it unthinkable not to make use of this poem. It is a legitimate and banal method of implying the similarities between Ted Hughes and Plath's father without blatantly denouncing either of them.

Gwynneth Paltrow does not act badly as Plath: it is just that her costume changes are more interesting than the dialogue she is given. Although Angelica Torn has to wrestle with a more outré script, her performance is more successful because she has two luxurious hours alone with her audience.

Paul Alexander obviously has firm ideas about how a suicidal person should talk, and her rapid monotonous drawl (yes, it is possible to drawl rapidly) is at first unsympathetic and difficult to follow. When she is allowed to emote quietly, however, she draws in the audience expertly. In the aforementioned passage that Alexander ruins by inserting a few lines of 'Daddy', she recreates Plath's early suicide attempt at 20, and the subsequent treatment process.

When Plath's early suicide attempts are mentioned in Sylvia they sound like mere romantic girlish notions. Torn is entirely convincing as the young Plath with her fear of failure and impossibly high creative and intellectual standards. It is also clear that this was a side of her character that at that age she had yet to fully understand.

Both Jeffs and Alexander are in awe of their subject, and their extremes of approach are plainly meant as a tribute. For an audience it is unfortunate that Plath inspires such self conscious reverence. Rather than concentrating on the period of her life that began when she first arrived at Cambridge and ended with her suicide, a different and more rewarding approach might be to explore her younger self, and the beginnings of her creative talents.

Edge is playing at the King's Head till 13 March 2004.