Closer at The Donmar

The Donmar Warehouse is one of London’s little gems and paying my yearly membership is money well spent.   I’m usually lucky enough to secure a downstairs seat, but not for their latest production, unfortunately.  The size of the Donmar means that there are really no bad seats, but an intimate play such as Closer is so much better viewed at “closer” quarters. There is no question that Patrick Marber’s play deserved the accolades it received back in 1997 and this first revival at the Donmar is, I am sure just as good.  It is a great play, which really does capture the havoc that sex and infidelity can produce and the four actors involved deliver good performances. So why wasn’t I totally convinced?   Probably because sitting side on, upstairs, means little nuances and facial expressions are lost and total involvement is somewhat impaired.

Closer is the story of two men, Dan and Larry and two women, Alice and Anna.  Their lives intertwine, the common denominator being sex.  Dan, an obituarist meets Alice after she’s been run over by a taxi.  He takes her to hospital where she is examined by dermatologist Larry.  Dan and Alice become an item.  Following the publication of his first book based on Anna’s experiences he meets Alice, a photographer.  He is immediately smitten and his persistence eventually pays off.  Another conquest.  In the meantime, Larry, via an internet chat room, has been lured to meet Alice, having been wrongly under the impression that she’s keen to indulge in whatever sexual ideas he can come up with.  I say wrongly, because he’s actually chatting to Dan!  So, Larry and Anna meet and eventually marry.  And so it goes on.  Ring-a-ring-a-couples.

The content is explicit and “in your face”.  The sexual dialogue that takes place over the internet is shown on a large screen and Act Two opens in a strip club.  Neither is supposedly as shocking nowadays as it would have been when the play was first performed, but a handful of the audience obviously thought so, as they didn’t return after the interval.  But then Patrick Marber obviously expects a strong reaction.  He pulls no punches in showing the two men’s preoccupation with sex and feels no compulsion to portray them in a good light.  It’s a very honest insight into certain men’s phsyche and the pursuit of sex and love by both sexes.  Closer is as much a play about lying (or at least concealing the truth) as anything else.  Alice’s whole existence is based on fiction, Dan pretends to be Anna and Larry hides the fact that he isn’t averse to using the internet to pick up a woman for casual sex.  And when they’re not lying, their unburdening of the truth to their prospective partners wounds, even fatally in one instance.

This may sound too depressing for words, but David Leveaux gives Patrick Marber’s play a lightness of touch that highlights the playwright’s great way with words.  It is a very original piece with some great dialogue and laugh out loud moments and Bunny Christie’s neutral set reconfigures well into whatever location is needed.

The four actors deliver assured performances, if not always producing the fizzling sexual chemistry in their relationships with one another.  Rufus Sewell  is the handsome Larry, at times cruelly calculating, at others seemingly insecure.  Rachel Redford imbues Alice with the right amount of needy vulnerabilityy on the one hand and a superficial steely confidence on the other, whilst Nancy Carroll is predictably good as the manipulative and sensual Anna.  The least convincing is the usually excellent Oliver Chris, who fails to produce much sex appeal.

Closer, located in an area north of St Pauls where Patrick Marber lives, is a play I wish I’d seen first time round, or at least seen it in my normal downstairs seat.