Mary Page Marlowe @ Old Vic Theatre, London
The one with the Old Vic Theatre played in the round and where, if you sit in the right place, Susan Sarandon will make her bow to you at the end!
Feeling the stagey starriness, this is in fact similar to The Years with less gore, The Hills of California with a focus on women’s lives, a family, its legacy, history and secrets (and fewer songs). and even Arthur Miller with post-war American family disintegration.
Portrayed in 11 scenes, jumping back and forth through Mary Page’s life and times via multiple actresses, we meet Mary Page Gilbert née Marlowe breaking the difficult news of what will happen once she and their father divorce to their children. (Around the dinner table over homework). Then we switch to teenage Mary Page dubiously casting her future via tarot with her friends and really really wanting not to be a wife and mother, even rejecting a recent proposal. (Ironically, both of which we’ve seen her become in a previous scene). We’re soon to encounter elder Mary and her end-of-life care, her reminiscences, her happy third marriage with her husband, awkwardly in an affair with her manager and her emotional distancing and compartmentalisation, in a counselling session and in some really painful scenes as a young girl and baby with her parents.
Over time, we learn that Mary Page is masking — that she goes along with what’s expected of her, rather than revealing who she is; that she’s hiding addiction which will lead to catastrophe and a criminal record (and self-knowledge). Just as her own family battled pain, trauma and secrets, so too will the Gilbert family. There are hints of inter-generational addictions, complex parent-child, mother-daughter relationships and unresolved issues.
I’d like to have seen more exploring female ageing and how Mary grew to love accountancy, about women in the workplace post-war and more of the family/work-life juggling. Instead we see or are told much of the time. Albeit it’s engrossing and much more than its starry names of Andrea Riseborough and Susan Sarandon, truly an ensemble piece. At times it’s really sad as Mary’s parents can’t talk to each other (her father having seen some horrific action in the Pacific battles of World War Two) and Mary replicates this, not telling one of her husband’s about an abortion or anything she thinks or feels, including her own lack of faith. Suggested too is Mary’s mother’s addiction which she also follows, before breaking free after a hideous wake-up call.
Beyond her dorm room hang-out, we never really see Mary’s female friends; we’re told instead that she has few friends. Even during her counselling session she explains how isolated she feels during intimacy. Instead we see how she tries to find her value or is assigned her value, and yet regrets so much of what is happening to her, feeling her powerlessness against a greater tide of life. That her life just happens. And to her. Drawn cards appear to define her — but do they? At the end, all the Mary actresses return, reassembling a collection of textiles symbolising the eras of Mary’s life and times.
It’s moving, but I think still had room and potential to say more. Nor does it become the play you think it’s going to become. In a heart-in-mouth moment, ‘baby’ Mary is abandoned by her mother after a fight and her father watches her cry. After what seems too long, he does the unexpected — cradles the baby and croons and soothes her. Just as Mary’s mother belittles her and then walks away sending her to her Grandma’s for an undefined time, so Mary has to painfully explain to her children what their father wants post-divorce, which doesn’t include them. She too has to walk away, to an extent, due to a new job in another state.
In one scene, Tracy Letts’ writing provides a thoroughly realistic portrayal of the frustration and rawness of living with a parent experiencing addiction. However, it’s much less grounded when Mary’s husband confronts her about her potential crime, criminal record and prison sentence. He’s shown as angry and shouty — and that is all. As we’ve seen in the mother-daughter scenes, its not easy — and yet all our sympathy ends up on the side of Mary Page. At other points, the writing is much more complex, with Mary Page humbly, almost numbly, accepting her guilt and the need for justice or in passionately expressing her love for husband number 3!
Overall, I think I wanted and expected the play to go deeper with its themes, but I enjoyed what I saw! and Susan Sarandon’s bow (centre stage to me in the cheap seats!!!) Equally marvellous too is how accessible the in the round staging allows the Old Vic to become. And I’m here for a whole play about Mary Page’s straight-talking, hilarious friend Connie (Kingsley Morton). Much less marvellous was how hot the theatre was, I struggled to concentrate — it was nausea inducing. Never wishing COVID times back, but goodness, please could we have some of the ventilation back again?!!
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