Emily Berry
posted 29 November 2006

Amy's View is partly a play about plays, questioning the relevance of theatre in a world increasingly dominated by the moving image. It's a theme that would seem to be even more relevant noe than at the time of its original staging in the mid-1990s. The current production is playing to a not untypical West End audience - genteel couples in late middle age, older tourists and empty seats.

It's a shame because the play is both entertaining and thought-provoking, qualities which don't always mix. The plot follows the relationship between Esme Allen, a garrulous actress, and her daughter Amy, whose marriage to the ambitious and self-serving Dominic is a source of tension. Esme is played with gusto by a tiny Felicity Kendal, giving an energetic performance that rather eclipses the rest of the cast. The discord between Esme and her metrosexual son-in-law is expressed in their distaste for each other's professions and subsequent values, Esme as a traditional stage actress and Dominic as a trashy arts critic and director of violent films. As Dominic's success grows, Esme's diminishes; he is getting richer, while she, naively entangled in bad investments, finds herself paralysed by debt.

Their argument is caught up with other versions of the old versus new debate, namely the decline of traditional British values - the local pub has become a fancy wine bar serving fusion food, while the village fete is simultaneously patronised and derided. Theatre is old-fashioned, film is more immediate; film is shallow, theatre many-layered, the argument goes - and the reactionary line would be to side with theatre as an ancient and therefore enduring art form.

On the surface this does seem like conservative, middle-class drawing room fluff - particularly for its writer David Hare, who is known for more edgy, political pieces. It's done in an archaic four-act style - not an entirely necessary conceit in the context of the play - with a lavish set so delicious to look at that one can't help wondering what's hiding behind its obsessive detail. The characters are resolutely bourgeois; references to Oxbridge, publishing houses, financial investments, and obscure arthouse magazines proliferate; while the characters' emotional journeys are obstructed by careers, extra-marital affairs, and debt. It would be easy to conclude that if Hare is seeking thoroughly to defend theatre, he fails. But there are more layers than that. Neither Esme nor Dominic are particularly likeable characters; Amy, necessarily rather a cipher of a character, acts as the calming voice of reason, helping the characters to recognise the complex links between love, money and art. Wronged by both parties yet desperate to reconcile them, it is her endlessly optimistic view which ultimately seems to win through.

Amy's View ends as the curtain rises on Esme's new play - a comeback of sorts. Her young co-star, as we've seen earlier, is an enthusiastic fan of both her and Dominic. In the very opening of this new play, dressed in white and soaked in water, the two embrace in relief, as if they've escaped something. This is a projected future in which the old and the new coexist happily; though Amy might take a different view after seeing the box office takings.

Till 17 March 2007.