Celebrated Edwardian novelist, D.H. Lawrence, whose best known works include LADY CHATTERLY’S LOVER, THE RAINBOW and WOMEN IN LOVE also wrote three gritty plays depicting tough life in a mining village at the turn of the last century. They lay unloved and unremarked upon until a revival in the 1960s established them as classics of domestic naturalism.They were never intended to form a trilogy but editor, Ben Power and director, Marianne Elliot have had the audacious idea of inter-cutting between the three and presenting the works as one play.
The in the round staging divides the stage up with a ground plan of three cottages and a pathway between them. It’s as if we can see inside the three family homes at the same time and switches in lighting direct our focus between the front rooms and the drama played out in each.
In the one there’s the Lamberts from A COLLIER’S FRIDAY NIGHT. The mother is so fond of her educated, upwardly mobile son that she alienates and neglects her gruff coal miner husband and flighty daughters as she tries to split up the boy and his girlfriend.
Another cottage is occupied by Holroyd family from THE WIDOWING OF MRS HOLROYD. The wife isn’t a widow but she wishes she were. Her husband is a drunken pig and she much prefers a handsome young electrician from the mine.
The third family on display are the Gascoignes from THE DAUGHTER-IN-LAW and a young wife is struggling to prise her husband away from the stifling influence of his over-bearing mother.
Various elements unite the three families, the time of day, gossip about a potential strike and a mining disaster. All the stories have wives and mothers as central figures and it’s great to see a piece with so many wonderful roles for women. The plays are a magnificent testimony to the strength, tenacity and passion of miner’s wives.
It’s great to see a piece with so many wonderful roles for women. The plays are a magnificent testimony to the strength, tenacity and passion of miner’s wives
Unfortunately leading the cast is TV and stage star Anne Marie Duff as Mrs Holroyd who, as usual, is so luminously brilliant that you miss her every time the action shifts to another actress.
It’s a long haul, three hours, and Lawrence’s brilliance in capturing the rhythms of real life mean very little seems to happen for long stretches of time. Watch carefully however and there’s plenty of fascinating sub text to think about. What’s not said is often more revealing than the buttoned up surface dialogue.
The trouble is the plays, whilst powerful individually, descend into soap opera territory as grim scenario follows after grim scenario like a gloomy EASTENDERS omnibus and after a while it’s hard to care. We are quite simply swamped by too much family angst.
There’s some beautiful stage pictures though and if you’re a Lawrence fan you’ll love this glut of feisty, working women gritting their teeth through their hardship.
Tickets to review CATS are allocated by the West End's least helpful, indeed only unhelpful, press agent. And for the second year running I was informed there wasn't room for me. Perhaps that's why she gets some of the best shows, she keeps riff-raff like us out!