Theatre Review: Twilight Song

It’s always a risk seeing a second play by a playwright who has written one piece that you’ve seen and absolutely love. Sometimes that risk pays off (Tony Kushner’s iHo, James Graham’s Ink), sometimes it doesn’t.

Twilight Song is the final thing that Kevin Elyot, whose other work includes the sublime My Night With Reg, wrote before his death a few years ago, being staged for the first time at the Park Theatre. It tells the story of one family’s life at three separate points in time, the present day and the early and late sixties, and how the intrusion of one stranger completely upsets their timeline. It’s an entertaining enough piece but, and I think you can guess where this is going, it’s not My Night With Reg. And whilst it may be unfair to compare the two, it’s extremely difficult not to. Twilight Song does not come out of this comparison well.

I love how weird this chalk board drawing of the programme cover is!

What Twilight Song does share with Reg is Elyot’s warm, funny, heartfelt writing. The initial present day scene in particular is very funny, though when the play’s plotting uncurls and you realise who the two characters actually are it becomes something very different (this realisation is by far the best bit of the play’s messing about with chronology because it is left unsaid). It also contains some very wry and depressingly relevant political lines, about the need for competence and solid economics, which the production does well not to overplay.

However, the actual story and characterisation is disappointing. The plot becomes far too predictable far too quickly, something not helped by the fact that this production presents it so unsubtly. Whilst trying to remain spoiler free, there is a blink and you’ll miss it line in the first 1960s scene which unlocks the whole play by revealing the relationship between the characters in the ‘flashbacks’ and the present day. This is enough explanation on its own. That the script then calls for this to be made clearer and clearer and clearer in every subsequent scene is unnecessary. It robs the piece, and this production in particular, of the dramatic impact it could have had if it were more subtle and trusted the audience more to reach the conclusions on its own. They are not that difficult to reach after all, even if you base them solely on the fact that two of the actors play multiple parts across the timeline. That’s a fairly huge clue as to what’s going on by itself. That the big reveal is confirmed, repeatedly, so early in the piece is also problematic. It’s difficult to fully invest in the action or the characters when you find out so early exactly what is going on. I feel like ambiguity in the script and in the staging would have been the key to making this play work. This is something that is notably absent.

The characterisation is also surprisingly slight (and not just in comparison with Reg, in comparison with any effective modern writing). There’s very little that helps us understand why the characters are acting as they are or what their backstories really are. I couldn’t help notice that this was particularly true for the play’s one female character, about whom we learn very little other than that she had a father whose views on women’s education and career choices were unenlightened. I’m not sure that this explains in any way satisfactorily why she ends up acting as she does.

All of this presents the small cast with a bit of an issue before they even step onto the stage. However, most of them do their best with what they are given. Adam Garcia is an interesting piece of casting for his two parts, Skinner and the gardener, and is very strong in the former at least. He has great stage presence and captures the nasty charisma of Skinner perfectly, really effectively foreshadowing what we’re about to learn. He doesn’t have a huge amount to do as the gardener and what he does do is completely overshadowed by his attempt at a cockney accent about which I will say nothing out of kindness. Paul Higgins is the other actor on double duty, as Barry and Basil, and is also notably more effective as one than the other. Barry is too laboured for my tastes but Basil is much stronger and conveys his quiet misery really well. Bryony Hannah’s Isabella is the weakest of the three leads for me, but this is a difficult part which gets little help from the writing so it feels unfair to criticise her too much. There is much stronger stuff from Philip Bretherton and Hugh Ross in the two smaller roles, Harry and Charles, who end up carrying the drama and convey the agony of the situation their characters face perfectly. They were the characters I really connected with and would have liked to have seen much more of, frankly.

My issues with the way it presents the plot notwithstanding, this production is technically very solid. The design is simple and the subtle changes made to the one set to show what time we’re in for each scene are very effective (the passage of time is less effectively portrayed elsewhere). The lighting is really well done; considered and careful without a single unnecessary bulb. The pacing of the production is about right too, though I could have done without some of the longer and more indulgent scene changes.

Ultimately, it was always going to be difficult for Twilight Song to compare to the love I have for My Night With Reg and it doesn’t. There’s too much unsubtlety in the writing, which is emphasised by the production, and not enough depth to the characters. However, that’s not to say it’s bad. Ultimately, it’s an entertaining piece of theatre and a solid production. If you go with those expectations then you’ll likely be significantly less disappointed than I was.

And, as an aside, the adorable Park Theatre is definitely worth trekking out to Finsbury Park to visit. It’s a cracking little venue.

Twilight Song plays at the Park Theatre until 12th August.