Every Little Brit

by David Anthony Fox

	print	email	reply	rss feed

Published: Feb 16, 2010

Mark Garvin LADY & THE TRAMP: In The Breath of Life, neither Madeleine (Ceal Phelan, left) nor Frances (Cheryl Williams) get what they're after.

It can't be easy for a theater to produce The Breath of Life, knowing what one of the characters, snooty curator Madeleine, would call its "provenance."David Hare wrote Breath for two of Britain's most beloved actresses, Judi Dench and Maggie Smith. There is nothing like the Dames, of course, and in the original West End production their combined megawattage overshadowed Hare's own work.Seeing it here, under honorable but more modest conditions, we can focus on the play itself.

Frances (Cheryl Williams), a 60-ish London wife-turned-novelist, arrives on the Isle of Wight to confront her ex-husband Martin's former mistress (the aforementioned Madeleine, played by Ceal Phelen).Frances is more curious than anything else, though Madeleine suspects ulterior motives.They sip tea and talk about themselves and each other.In a mildly interesting twist, it's the wife, Frances, who is pretty, kempt and pleasant. The mistress is angular and strident. Not that it matters in the end: The unseen Martin ultimately takes off for Seattle with a third (and much younger) woman.

Hare gets off a few good lines, and suggests that moving to the United States is Martin's ultimate vulgarity. The playwright relishes a chance to dole out Ugly American jokes. Hare is nothing if not smug, but although he's adorned Breath with the trappings of intellect — Madeline's expertise in Islamic art, some vaguely existential badinage between the two women — there's no mistaking the formulaic thinness of the play, which depends utterly on the charm of its actresses. Lantern Theater provides a physically scrumptious production, but the director and cast treat the script with a sense of hushed reverence, which drains Breath of some of its wit while compounding its tweedy PBS-ness.

For all of Hare's airs, The Breath of Life is the stuff of a Lifetime movie. Of course, Stateside television would offer no art, no tea, no discussions of philosophy.Instead, we'd have Markie Post and Jaclyn Smith pulling each other's hair.And it would be a hell of a lot less tedious.

Through Feb. 28, $20-$35, Lantern Theater Co. at St. Stephen's Theater, 923 Ludlow St., 215-829-0395, lanterntheater.org.

Lust in Translation
Philly Rocks Your Playlist
Ancient Rome & America
Fever Pitch
Buddy System
Kaleidoscope
Jimmy Heath
Red Heroine
New Edge Mix