EXCERPT: "I was mentally engaged throughout, emotionally connected to the characters, and the panache with which the men in particular enacted their parts made for a hugely enjoyable and entertaining evening - but I wasn't shaken up by it in the way I'd have liked to be and I did miss having a structural resolution."
Summary
On a bitterly cold London evening, schoolteacher Kyra Hollis receives an unexpected visit from her former lover, Tom Sergeant, a successful and charismatic restaurateur whose wife has recently died. As the evening progresses, the two attempt to rekindle their once passionate relationship only to find themselves locked in a dangerous battle of opposing ideologies and mutual desires.
Bill Nighy, Carey Mulligan and Matthew Beard star. Skylight is directed by Stephen Daldry who recently directed the sell-out West End production of The Audience and whose award-winning stage work also includes An Inspector Calls and Billy Elliot the Musical. David Hare is the author of 29 plays for stage including South Downs.
Thoughts
David Hare's Skylight is an exquisitely well put together production. Bill Nighy and Carey Mulligan have been cast in the two central roles of married man Tom and his ex-lover Kyra, despite the excessive age gap between the two actors. The problem is exacerbated by the youthful appearance of the fresh faced 29 year old Mulligan and the haggard worn visage of the 64 year old Nighy. (Nighy apparently played the role 20 years ago - and I think he'd have probably been a better age for it then). Despite this, they are well matched. They both have the ability to mesmerise and both have a very natural and formidable stage presence. Nighy's incredibly mimicable and charming mannerisms are counterbalanced by Mulligan's poise and straight talking sincerity. We never doubt that as a couple they could work, or that one could find the other attractive - despite coming from different sides of the coin and so many generations apart. This is made clearest when we see David Hare's eloquent and intelligently constructed dialogue in full force: just as Tom says, rather than sending out big serves that never come back, they rally back and forth in a verbal tennis match that is incredibly compelling. I almost felt my head turning from side to side like a tennis game spectator, totally in thrall to whoever it was who last spoke. What a powerful thing theatre is - to make people listen and force them to fully comprehend where two very different sets of values and people are coming from.
Kudos to Matthew Beard as Edward, who managed to really hold his own in the performance as the third leg of the tripod. Next to two such big stars, both of whom command our attention so fully, it is incredibly impressive that he didn't let the side down. Quite the opposite: he managed to catch onto a couple of Nighy's classic mannerisms and simulate them in the very natural way a son would his father. And he brought a very likeable charm to the role that made me imagine he was as his father would have been in his younger years and that softened the rather bitter Kyra. Especially when he and Kyra hugged at the end - in a way that was very reminiscent of the way she had done with his father - I rather wondered if anything might happen between them.
That nothing did is perhaps why I felt so peculiarly unsatisfied at the play's conclusion. The lack of any structural resolution meant that, although the necessary ingredients for a compelling drama had been expertly realised, I really missed the final denouement and the sort of cathartic closure only a big climax can give you. I was mentally engaged throughout, emotionally connected to the characters, and the panache with which the men in particular enacted their parts made for a hugely enjoyable and entertaining evening - but I wasn't shaken up by it in the way I'd have liked to be and I did miss having a structural resolution.
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