Sunday 11th June 2023
Jean-Paul Satre claimed that ‘hell is other people’. In this rehearsed reading for one night only Upstairs at the Gatehouse, Steven Berkoff has taken it up a notch with his depiction of purgatory as an eternity listening to the theatrical anecdotes of dead luvvies.
The scene is set when Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson (a wonderfully sonorous Ben Whitehead) and Richard Burton are passing the time of day, with Olivier perusing the obituary columns to see who might be joining them, then exclaiming in horror that Peter O’Toole has died. Never mind, someone quips, surely he will be in the alcoholic section with Oliver Reed and Richard Harris. However, by a stroke of luck (for us), it turns out that the alcoholics section is full, and so O’Toole arrives to complete the cast of this deliciously wicked comedy.
Berkoff must have had a wealth of material to choose from, but he has selected some choice nuggets of luvviedom and crafted them into a masterful display of mutual ego-stroking. Each actor must get the balance right. Too modest and they will end up in the shadows. Too arrogant and they will be mercilessly mocked. It is delicate dance.
First up we have George Telfer as Gielgud with his heart-breaking cottaging story. He starts well, but is soon upstaged by Richard Burton’s verbose musings on the word ‘cottage’. After a rousing finish, however, he earns a round of hearty congratulations for his bravery in going on stage the next night.
Glenn McCready gives Richard Burton’s Welsh pipes full reign which never fails to entertain, but his nemesis arrives in the form of Elizabeth Taylor (Sarah Mann) who points out that his published diaries are less than flattering to her, a fact which seems to have passed him by. His plea for clemency that they were meant to be published after her death falls on deaf ears for some reason. He has his moment of triumph, however, with the epic story of Edmund Keen’s sword, which was passed on from one great actor to the next as they witness a performance which touches them sufficiently. He tells how the sword ends up with Laurence Olivier and asks pointedly, to whom Olivier had felt moved to bequeath it. We’ll draw a veil over the answer.
Olivier has his own moment of pathos when he describes a (very brief) crisis of confidence when he worries that his portrayal of Richard III might come across as a bit of a pantomime. Comforted by a fellow actor who pats him gently on the hump, he refrains from crying lest he dislodge the prosthetic make-up on his face.
The insincere moral support and damning with faint praise is raised to an art form in response to Peter O’Toole’s genuinely touching account (a particularly convincing Timothy Bentinck) of being laughed at when he appeared as Macbeth at the Old Vic, culminating the actor’s ultimate weapon: ‘Well, I thought you were good’.
Berkoff has assembled a remarkable cast to re-animate these great giants of the theatre for one night, and as an added bonus, not only does he bring a monstrous Laurence Olivier back to life, his presence amongst these legends seems only fitting given his own towering achievements as a writer, actor and Director of ground-breaking theatre.
We sincerely hope this play will continue in development and get a fully staged production. in the meantime, an audio version can be downloaded from Steven Berkoff’s own website.
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