“An Ideal Husband,” Brighton Open Air Theatre
Simon Jenner in East Sussex
21 August 2024
Behind every Ideal Husband there’s an idealist wife: or so Wilde mischievously proposes in his 1895 An Ideal Husband brought on tour to Brighton’s BOAT Theatre, in a memorably rethought, clear performance by DOT Productions directed by Andrew Lindfield. It continues touring till September 8th.
Though this five-hander, multi-role production is superbly tailored for such venues, we should forget the outdoor tag with its usual cut-down, slightly populist feel. This is first-rate theatre and acting: subtle but vivid, rethought for a modern audience but making no compromise with Wilde’s text. Iindeed, some sexist language often trimmed is allowed full vent here. In its two-and-a-half hours (with 20-minute interval) the serpentine plot-twists and characters emerge as clear as neon strips, or BOAT’s sidelights clicking silently on in the gathering August gloom.
In fact, there are additions: a moment near the close when two protagonists – Viscount Goring and Gertrude – frantically signal to unravel each other’s confusions in dumb-show, while their admired friend and husband respectively, Sir Robert Chiltern, fulminates in misunderstanding.
The Importance of Being Earnest was produced only a month after this work, with its clear pre-echoes in characters; but also of tragic portents of scandal almost immediately overtaking Wilde. The darker tone is introduced playfully but swiftly. Under-Secretary of State Sir Robert Chiltern (Sam Dunning, also Viscount Goring’s elderly buffer father Lord Caversham) is the ideal husband of the title, adored by his idealist wife Gertrude, Lady Chiltern (Ciara Power, also Goring’s fuddy Butler Phipps).
Gertrude dangerously loves Robert for his clean political record, his probity and idealism in office. Power decorously rubs against Dunning like ivy clinging to an Ionic pillar.
Just as well the Chilterns’ greatest friend Viscount Goring (Dom Thomson, also the wonderfully cynical Lady Markby), an apparent idler, is really the moral centre of the play. He’s also a quick-witted, ingenious plotter. He will need to be.
Robert’s sister Mabel (Holly Baynes, also Mason, the Chilterns’ bewigged butler) adds a quicksilver delight: in love with Goring but making light of it out of fear, as he does with her, their continual light-but-serious badinage runs through the play with a Shavian relaxed sense. There is though a Wildean heart to Mabel, and Baynes realizes it with bell-like clarity.
Unfortunately … Gertrude’s old school enemy Mrs (Laura) Cheveley (Sarita Plowman) arrives from Vienna to privately blackmail Robert with a letter come into her possession via a man who enticed Robert to sell a cabinet secret; the basis of his fortune. Her price is that he should extol the virtues of a dodgy Argentine canal scheme he was about to scupper.
Plowman embodies Cheveley’s light, deadly flirtation, her laugh and unsettling presence. Chevely also once attracted Goring into a whirlwind proposal, swiftly broken off. Cheveley has designs on him too amidst her vengeance on a world that expelled her from school and (perhaps) society.
Plot and counter-plot abound. First with Robert retelling Goring all, Cheveley letting Gertrude know everything; Gertrude trying to take up Goring’s invitation to call any time, and confusions when the wrong woman is led into Goring’s library. Climactically cross and double-cross unfold between Goring and Cheveley, involving a bracelet with secret clasp, and a new letter.
Plowman and Thomson are superb in this stand-off, Plowman playing as many aces as Cheveley can, including genuine attraction to Goring. What Plowman truly conveys is the humanity of a woman living on her wits, charm and real if twisted desires. You get the impression Cheveley herself has put true, not expedient love on ice, till she sees Goring: her one equal. Equally in Plowman’s depiction, she’s playful enough never to let herself fall too much.
Goring trounces with an ace up his sleeve, endangered by Cheveley’s inveterate habit of thieving, one instance of which has just been cuffed as it were. Thomson adds a brooding depth to his apparent “to love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance” mode, which exasperates Dunning in decrepit Lord Caversham guise: bent, bewigged, fulminating magnificently.
Beyond this lies Goring’s pragmatic seriousness, understanding humane limits. Thomson and Dunning too pace and counter-plot with desperation, as Dunning inhabits a man with limited resources to fight or plan. Chance and Goring’s quick-wittedness moves the plot forward, cross-checked by Cheveley.
Dunning with Power is a study in fall and grace; their understanding that both are compromised. Dunning elicits quicksilver sympathy as his conflicting emotions play against others, and Robert’s complexities unravel.
Power has the trickiest role of an absolutist suddenly brought low. Confronting Dunning furnishes a fine Act One (in reality Act Two) finale. Power’s scenes with Thomson reveal far more vulnerability, and the finale, as illusions are stripped to reveal depths of understanding, are moving. That includes last-minute hiccups with Thomson and Baynes’ sparring couple, where youthful romance releases itself.
The unfussy but evocative set design by Lindfield and co-producer Louisa Marie-Hunt is just right. It comprises an elegant eggshell-green frontage, enough changes of chairs for drawing toom or conservatory, and bureaus.
Such vocal clarity, without mics, in a wind threatening gale force as it chases papers across the stage, is nothing short of remarkable. Voice and acting are cystalline which means plot unravelling is similarly clear. Closely observed, faintly hinting irreverence but being absolutely truthful, DOT Productions prove a company to anticipate. They perform Treasure Island as a double bill on the same day.
