January 16, 2008
Liked Sense and Sensibility, but felt there was something missing? Some political economy, perhaps? Yet Tell My Name Again To Me at the OFS (written and directed by Helen McCabe) supplies this lack, by bravely tackling the love life of John Stuart Mill.
Philosopher, economist, advocate of social reform and women's rights, Mill makes a rare appearance here as lover. The play opens in 1830, when Mill (Ben Baxter) is introduced to the married Harriet Taylor (Renata McAdams), pregnant with her third child. For the rest of their lives, they would be emotionally and intellectually involved, exchanging essays and letters on the position of women in society, marriage and divorce - deeply informed by personal experience, as Harriet agonised over whether to leave her husband.
It's slow going at the start, with much political perplexity amid the tea-cups. Mr Taylor (David Workman) is exercised about the 'pernicious stamp duty'. His wife, meanwhile, is ominously keen to debate the value of marriage, and young Mill is equally eager to hear all about her radical theories of love and freedom. By the second scene, her political fervour has driven him into a passion, and awkward declarations are made across the chaise longue with the help of Tennyson. She is a 'fire-bird', a 'phoenix', John Stuart declares, looking a bit bashful, and rather as if he wished to be deconstructing Benthamite principles instead.
Towards the interval, the two are brought together in concern over a consumptive friend, and a breathing-trumpet makes a star appearance. After Mill's heroic production of this trumpet, everything begins to get a bit more heated, culminating in a passionate embrace - and discovery by the wronged husband. By the second half, they've managed to escape the bounds of convention, and are living in bliss in Paris, accompanied by Harriet's children and Mill's theories.
But it's hard to reconcile principles with practice, especially when everyone is gossiping about your affairs, and you can't get your economic analyses accepted by the papers any longer. For the sake of the political theory, our lovers must part. Or will they? We end with a daringly experimental compromise, in which I was rather hoping the breathing-trumpet might be called on to play a part, but sadly it remained in the background.
The only period drama with added political theory you'll see all year, McCabe's intellectual love triangle is a valiant shot at a Utilitarian Oscar Wilde, with a dash of Iris Murdoch thrown in.
Philosopher, economist, advocate of social reform and women's rights, Mill makes a rare appearance here as lover. The play opens in 1830, when Mill (Ben Baxter) is introduced to the married Harriet Taylor (Renata McAdams), pregnant with her third child. For the rest of their lives, they would be emotionally and intellectually involved, exchanging essays and letters on the position of women in society, marriage and divorce - deeply informed by personal experience, as Harriet agonised over whether to leave her husband.
It's slow going at the start, with much political perplexity amid the tea-cups. Mr Taylor (David Workman) is exercised about the 'pernicious stamp duty'. His wife, meanwhile, is ominously keen to debate the value of marriage, and young Mill is equally eager to hear all about her radical theories of love and freedom. By the second scene, her political fervour has driven him into a passion, and awkward declarations are made across the chaise longue with the help of Tennyson. She is a 'fire-bird', a 'phoenix', John Stuart declares, looking a bit bashful, and rather as if he wished to be deconstructing Benthamite principles instead.
Towards the interval, the two are brought together in concern over a consumptive friend, and a breathing-trumpet makes a star appearance. After Mill's heroic production of this trumpet, everything begins to get a bit more heated, culminating in a passionate embrace - and discovery by the wronged husband. By the second half, they've managed to escape the bounds of convention, and are living in bliss in Paris, accompanied by Harriet's children and Mill's theories.
But it's hard to reconcile principles with practice, especially when everyone is gossiping about your affairs, and you can't get your economic analyses accepted by the papers any longer. For the sake of the political theory, our lovers must part. Or will they? We end with a daringly experimental compromise, in which I was rather hoping the breathing-trumpet might be called on to play a part, but sadly it remained in the background.
The only period drama with added political theory you'll see all year, McCabe's intellectual love triangle is a valiant shot at a Utilitarian Oscar Wilde, with a dash of Iris Murdoch thrown in.