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The Review - THEATRE By TOM FOOT
 
Interesting twist to old class fable

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HILDA
Hampstead Theatre

FRENCH writer Marie Ndiaye’s first claim to fame was a 100-page novel comprised of a single sentence.

Likewise, her most recent play, Hilda, strives to be different but suffers from a similar sprawl of consciousness, setting out with great endeavour but trailing off into an incoherent ramble.
Enter the striking lady of the house, Mrs Lemarchand (Stella Gonet) sitting inside a glasshouse on a rotating stage. Odd-job man Franck (Bo Poraj) – the David Beckham of the piece – visits her seeking work.
Frank’s wife Hilda needs a job. Mrs Lemarchand wants a servant.
But alarm bells ring for the handsome, obtuse labourer when the sex-starved mistress interviews him about his wife. Is she pretty? Is she politically active? Does she use contraception?
Mrs Lemarchand says she is an ex-revolutionary, a member of the Socialist Party in need of servants to love and to exploit. She obsesses over Hilda, dominating the husband and steadily weaning his wife away from him. But Hilda, who is never seen, rejects her mistress’s hospitality.
What looked to be a unique take on the well-worn class divide fable drew bursts of spontaneous laughter from all around the theatre.
The tragedy of a socialist aristocrat who loved her servants too much, rather than the poor maid struggling against her wealthy oppressors, is a part rarely seen before – like a compassionate Nazi in a play about the Holocaust.
But this idea was never really followed through as Mrs Lemarchand’s grip on her housekeeper’s husband tightens. The script changes tack and suddenly Franck takes centre stage. Hard-up and unable to work, he effectively sells Hilda off and shacks up with her sister, his good intentions devoured by the social vampire Need.
As the themes revolved, and the set rotated, something rich and strange suffered a sea change.
Solid performances from both Poraj and Gonet but Hilda seemed to me a missed opportunity.
Until May 6
020 7722 9301


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