Guardian Review - 19th February 2002
I last saw David Warner gracefully humanising Shaw's arms manufacturer, Andrew Undershaft, in a Broadway Major Barbara. Now Warner returns to the London stage, after 30 years, as another money-loving tycoon in this seriously weird Icelandic import from Olaf Olafsson; but I spent much of the endless 100-minute evening hungering not for a feast of snails but for one iota of Shaw's subversive wit.
Olafsson's situation could hardly be odder. Karl Johnson, a Reykjavik tycoon, prepares to spend an evening savouring a solitary feast: a member of an epicurean club, he plans to sit down to a meal of multi-national molluscs at the same time as his Paris colleagues. But a stranger turns up at the scheduled hour whom the lonely Karl invites to join his banquet. What follows is a seven course sparring match in which the young man, a primary school teacher, slowly exposes the tycoon's ruthlessness and racism while the two scoff snails.
"He's up to something and he's afraid to cut to the chase," says the tycoon of his guest; and much the same could be said of Olafsson. At first I assumed he was writing a gastronomic thriller but the play moves so slowly it is more Sloth than Sleuth. Then, given its theme of territorial invasion and the fact that there are two female servants, I assumed we might be in for a Nordic No Man's Land. But the disappointing thing is that Olafsson sets up this elaborate construct and then has nothing startling to reveal.
Actually Olafsson might have learned much from Major Barbara: Shaw's genius lay in giving his monster the best arguments which is why Warner's Undershaft enlisted our sympathy.
But here Warner, who has acquired a fine silvery dignity with the years, has a hard task making this Icelandic tycoon dramatically interesting. In his snobbish food fetish, the droit de seigneur he exercises over a female servant and his arch brandishing of a Wotan like spear, the character reminds me of nothing so much as one of those paper-thin Bond film baddies. I just wish that, after all this time, Warner could have found a better role to match his imposing presence.
Philip Glenister is suitably needling as the inquisitive teacher, Siwan Morris brightens every scene she appears in as the impish maid and Ron Daniels directs this dramatically inert piece as best he can.
But the real problem is that Olafsson wants both to expose the moral bankruptcy of the super-rich and at the same time allow us vicariously to wallow in their lifestyle. The result is pure gastro-voyeurism.
Olafsson's situation could hardly be odder. Karl Johnson, a Reykjavik tycoon, prepares to spend an evening savouring a solitary feast: a member of an epicurean club, he plans to sit down to a meal of multi-national molluscs at the same time as his Paris colleagues. But a stranger turns up at the scheduled hour whom the lonely Karl invites to join his banquet. What follows is a seven course sparring match in which the young man, a primary school teacher, slowly exposes the tycoon's ruthlessness and racism while the two scoff snails.
"He's up to something and he's afraid to cut to the chase," says the tycoon of his guest; and much the same could be said of Olafsson. At first I assumed he was writing a gastronomic thriller but the play moves so slowly it is more Sloth than Sleuth. Then, given its theme of territorial invasion and the fact that there are two female servants, I assumed we might be in for a Nordic No Man's Land. But the disappointing thing is that Olafsson sets up this elaborate construct and then has nothing startling to reveal.
Actually Olafsson might have learned much from Major Barbara: Shaw's genius lay in giving his monster the best arguments which is why Warner's Undershaft enlisted our sympathy.
But here Warner, who has acquired a fine silvery dignity with the years, has a hard task making this Icelandic tycoon dramatically interesting. In his snobbish food fetish, the droit de seigneur he exercises over a female servant and his arch brandishing of a Wotan like spear, the character reminds me of nothing so much as one of those paper-thin Bond film baddies. I just wish that, after all this time, Warner could have found a better role to match his imposing presence.
Philip Glenister is suitably needling as the inquisitive teacher, Siwan Morris brightens every scene she appears in as the impish maid and Ron Daniels directs this dramatically inert piece as best he can.
But the real problem is that Olafsson wants both to expose the moral bankruptcy of the super-rich and at the same time allow us vicariously to wallow in their lifestyle. The result is pure gastro-voyeurism.
Original article can be found here.
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