Clare Holman in Each His Own Wilderness
I am no expert when it comes to plays. Yes, I love the theatre, but my knowledge of the stage and its many wonderful productions is painfully superficial. Doris Lessing herself would no doubt readily label me a dilettante (and, yes, I had to look that word up when I first read Each His Own Wilderness). However, I do know that sometimes I go to see something that captivates me to such an extent that I can’t think about anything else for days afterwards. Clare’s performance (and that of her on stage son, Joel MacCormack) absolutely confounded me… and it’s not usual for me to be lost for words.
Clare played Myra Bolton, a middle-aged widow living in London in the late 50s, who spends her life passionately campaigning for distant causes linked to her socialist convictions. The play opens with a tape recorder playing machine gun fire and explosions - an audio concoction which Myra herself has put together as part of her efforts in protest against the H-Bomb. Looking back, this was an entirely apt prologue to the moment that Clare first burst onto the stage, beginning her fire-cracking, rip-roaring and utterly mesmerising performance as Myra. Throughout the course of the play - which is essentially a window upon the souls of bright, opinionated women in the late 50s - Clare steered Myra on a roller-coaster ride of uproarious highs and depth-plumbing despairing lows, all the while zinging with restless energy. My limited understanding (see above!) of Lessing’s objective is that the play seeks to convey the cry of pain of a generation of women in the late 50s, struggling to find a place for their passions and intelligence in a society that was not quite ready for the feminist movements of the 60s. Basically, these women are wondering what the hell life is all about (ring any bells?) against a backdrop of woeful politics and the apparent ambivalence of their young. And it was certainly a cry of pain which Clare gave us.
Her portrayal of Myra was so scintillating, it made it hard to take your eyes from her, unless it was to the equally mesmerising performance of Joel MacCormack, who played her son. She laughed, she sobbed, she shouted and she simmered: one moment sprawling flirtatiously on the sofa, the next flitting agitatedly about the stage, the next huddled and weeping in an armchair, as Myra unpacked her life and emotions for the audience. Tiny and flighty, unable to sit still for long - as though the whirrings of Myra’s brain were physically manifesting themselves - Clare buzzed with the emotional chasm between our mundane day-to-day existence and the white-knuckle terror of life’s bigger questions.
Clare’s performance was matched perfectly by Joel MacCormack, who gave us an utterly compelling Tony, serving up a myriad of emotions at the flick of a switch: from simpering and plaintive to brooding and sneering. Like his mother, Tony is a twisted wreck of inner turmoil, tormented by the tensions between his ideals, his disappointments and the unfathomable hum-drum of day-to-day life. Mother and son share a depth of feeling and anxiety about the state of the world, but their political convictions and their hopes for Tony’s future do not align. They feel deeply, but irk each other spectacularly - each despairing with the other’s outlook - to make for a a thrilling interaction that crackles with hot-headed affection and bitter disappointment. This provides the focal point for the play.
The characters’ entangled love lives provide the main plot. Clare’s character, Myra, is thronged by dispassionate men (save for one - Philip - whom she had loved painfully deeply, only to have him ‘throw her over’) and does not want for male attention. However, she seems to spend her life yearning - indeed most of the characters do - for something more. My favourite line from the play is Myra’s observation, “Depressed. That word annoys me. Half the time we dope ourselves up with some stimulant - men, our children, work. Then it fails and we see things straight and it’s called being depressed. You know quite well that there’s only one question that everyone’s asking - what are we alive for?” Sometimes, in my darker days, I wonder exactly the same thing. We’re all living right next to each other (in our own little wilderness, as Lessing would have it), searching for the answers. Lessing was writing about it in the 50s, but to me it doesn’t seem that different now. Needless to say, the play ended without any eureka moment.
Urgh, I could talk all day (and just as inexpertly and incoherently as I have done here) about the play. I have been a fan of Clare’s for many years, but something about watching her perform in such an intimate setting (the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond is tiny) was unexpectedly moving. The play really struck a chord with me and her performance knocked me for six. I can’t stop thinking about it. I am in awe of her. I just wish we got to see more of her. I really do.
discoholicmusic
izzy806
prguitarman
pixelskylines
areudirty
2087
kianamaiart
