The Lady from Dubuque

What a superb actress Dame Maggie Smith is! She truly transformed this play that I saw at the Theatre Royal Haymarket recently.

The Lady from DuBurque is not often produced but it is an excellent vehicle for Maggie Smith, who dominates the second act totally. The play is by the same writer as 'Whose afraid of Virginia Woolf' and is as verbally violent as that play, famously starring on screen Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. The Lady from Duburque opens at the end of a social evening involving three couples, who are 'friends' but appear to have absolutely nothing in common, but in reality hate one another - or do they. One woman is dying of cancer and is in enormous pain - and takes this out on everyone else - her husband, her old college friend, her weak husband, their boorish male friend and his seemingly unsophisticated girlfriend.

The humour is harsh and bitter, sharp and pointed, to the extent that it almost offensive. When things appear to be on the brink of open warfare the actors address the audience and demand answers. (Of course as a British audience we resolutely stared at our shoes and hoped not to have to respond).

The woman who is dying is bemoaning the fact that her mother has abandoned her and ignored her even at the moment of her death. And then Maggie Smith appears with her black 'friend/lover?' and claims to be the long estranged mother. But is she - she is the lady from DuBurque. These two characters inject a great deal of humour (still extremely sharp) and pathos but prevents it from turning into total bathos and melodrama.

Worth seeing - even if only for Maggie Smith's wonderful performance. Rating 7/10

Hogarth Exhibition - Tate Gallery

I managed to catch this 'major exhibition' of the works of Hogarth at the Tate Britain today. I think one of the problems I had with this exhibition was the volume of people allowed in to view at the same time. Many of the pieces are relatively small, and the captions attached are quite lengthy - obviously wanting to put the prints and paintings in some kind of context. The crowds gathered around each print meant it was difficult to appreciate the contents. The other problem stems from familiarity. Many of the pictures or series of pieces (Rake's Progress, Harlot's Progress, Marriage a la Mode) are reproduced so regularly that seeing the real thing holds no surprises. With large scale pictures this isn't a problem, but prints that appear true size in magazines are not going to be revelatory when seen hanging on a wall. I don't feel much link with the life of pre-industrial England - and although Hogarth was a campaigning artist many of the targets of his satire have been lost in time. He isn't really an innovator, nor is he a great portrait painter or landscape painter. The Holbein Exhibition earlier held many surprises and you could see the development of his art - into realism and perspective, the Constable Exhibition revealed so much about his techniques and composition, Hogarth tauught me nothing new. Interesting to see these works of art all in one place but not a truly memorable exhibition.