Alison's House - review (From Richmond and Twickenham Times)

Alison's House - review

2:56pm Monday 19th October 2009

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The Orange Tree Theatre has dedicated itself to bringing the works of little known American playwright Susan Glaspell to a wider audience and, on the evidence of its latest production, it is a good job too.

Alison’s House won Glaspell the Pulitzer Prize in 1930 and it is not hard to see why. Using the life of poet Emily Dickinson as its inspiration, Alison’s House is a brilliant play and the Orange Tree’s stylish, understated revival is more than a match for it.

It is last night of the 19th century and the Stanhope family are saying goodbye to their family home in Iowa. The most famous of their number, poet Alison, died 18 years before but it is as if she is still alive such is the influence she still holds over the family she has left behind.

Her brother John is doing his best to hold the Stanhopes together as the move stirs painful memories. His surviving sister Agatha is a fierce protector of Alison's legacy and dark secrets are hinted at as a keen reporter arrives from Chicago and John's youngest son Ted probes for information about his aunt for a college paper.

Ultimately, it is the discovery of a cache of previously undiscovered poems which reveal Alison fell in love with a married man that brings the family's New Year's Eve to a head.

Should the poems be published, as the nieces and nephews wish, or would Alison's reputation be better served by keeping them secret, as John demands?

Director Jo Combes deals with the play's main themes – the clash between the two generations of Stanhopes and the conflict between an artist's right to privacy and the public's thirst for information - with great clarity.

It seems the Orange Tree's 'in the round' setting is the play's natural home and the air of quiet melancholy that the production evokes serves the writing well.

Christopher Ravenscroft's John is a sad-eyed and sensitive creation for whom the discovery of the poem brings into sharp focus the memory of his own lost love. His performance is one of the many excellent turns from a strong ensemble. Grainne Keenan, in her professional debut, excels as the headstrong Elsa and Kieron Jecchinis is on fine comic form as the brash Hodges, the prospective owner of the Stanhopes' beloved home.

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