Never before has one of Mrs Elton’s tenants tried to commit suicide by gassing herself.
Hester Collyer hasn’t succeeded in ending her life, however - she didn’t put enough shillings in the meter. She is soon resuscitated by kindly “Mr” Miller (James Hillier) from the top floor flat - gossipy landlady Mrs Elton (Eliza Hunt) alleges that he is actually a doctor “That never should have been struck off”.
In Terence Rattigan’s play The Deep Blue Sea, Mrs Collyer has left her husband, a judge, to live in poverty with Freddie Page, a former ace RAF pilot. It’s a few years after the end of the Second World War, and feckless Freddie resorts to drink as he whiles away his boring life. As a result, his relationship with Hester comes under strain.“I’ve spent my entire life trying to avoid getting tangled up in other people’s emotions,” he announces.
Director Douglas Rintoul paces this new Watermill production of the play with great skill. For instance, the moment when Hester’s husband arrives (in his Rolls-Royce) at the scene of his wife’s attempted suicide seems to last forever: the pair simply stare at each other across the dingy room, and you could cut the atmosphere with a knife. Judge William Collyer is well portrayed by Adam Kotz: on the surface he’s every inch the emotionless lawyer, but there is no doubt that he is still desperately in love with his wife. Meanwhile, Adam Jackson-Smith’s Freddie comes across as emotionally immature, and none too sure of his performance in bed.
But in this beautifully-crafted play, Rattigan provides Hester with the star role. Hester is a clergyman’s daughter who rarely forgets her inbred good manners, even at moments of great stress, and Hattie Ladbury brings this out most effectively in a finely nuanced performance.
The Deep Blue Sea could seem dated – it’s hardly a scandal for a married woman to run off with another man in 2015. But the play is also about the bitter, all-encompassing threat of loneliness. And that doesn’t date.
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