A very long way indeed after Electra. April De Angelis uses a family structure broadly similar to that in the Greek dramas about the eponymous woman: here too the central arrangement is mother/daughter/son (the latter almost an afterthought in this case). And here too the issue is a mother’s refusal to conform to expectations of her role. In the classical tale, Clytemnestra takes a lover and the two of them conspire in the murder of Electra’s father Agamemnon; in De Angelis’ drama, Virgie’s long-past (more than 40 years ago) desertion of her children in order to be true to her boho artistic nature is now revisited as she declares her intention to commit suicide on her 81st birthday.

Marty Cruickshank as Virgie gets two decent bites of the dramatic cherry: first, articulately arguing her decision in the face of children, sister and old friends, then undergoing a major personality change to blunt and embittered. Veronica Roberts as daughter Haydn is the fulcrum of the play, torn between the ordeals of her mother’s absence in various ways and that of her continuing presence.

What is most admirable about the venture is the deliberate decision to write a clutch of good, sizeable parts for older actresses. As well as octogenarian Virgie and late-fifties Haydn, the play includes Virgie’s slightly younger sister Shirley (Rachel Bell revisiting her personality on BBC-TV’s Grange Hill as a brisk schoolmistress, here elevated to the House of Lords) and family friend Sonia who appears to be sixtysomething.

However, between the generational audacity (though really, what kind of theatrical culture is it when we can call such a move daring?) and the impressionistic shadow of the Greek myth, this becomes a play in which form ultimately trumps content. Sonia’s husband Tom is a creaky stereotype of an actor, and it seems as if every time De Angelis wants to change direction she introduces a new character: son Orin, cabbie Roy, former student Miranda each enter unheralded and without much to do dramatically. Both the playwright and director Samuel West regard all the characters sympathetically, but no quarter is given to any of their viewpoints or arguments, and that personal warmth begins to leach away.
  
Written for the Financial Times.