Words by Melissa Blease
In March 1863, the new Theatre Royal Bath – originally the Orchard Street Theatre, which was destroyed by fire in 1862 – opened on Saw Close with a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream starring pioneering actor Ellen Terry as Titania.
It’s somehow fitting, then, that iconic actor Miranda Raison is bringing Ellen Terry back to life on that very same stage today, opening the eagerly-ancipated Ralph Fiennes/Theatre Royal Bath Season with David Hare’s new play Grace Pervades which chronicles the lives and times of Terry and her involvement with the hugely influential actor-manager Henry Irving (Fiennes): a triumvirate of British stage and screen legends, then, who have each made their own profound contributions to the development of British theatre since Terry and Irving blazed the original trail.
Whether Irving’s long relationship with Terry was romantic as well as professional has been the subject of much historical speculation. By recounting their story from the perspective of Terry’s illegitimate children Edith and Edward (who each, in their own ways, had their own very strong views on the shaping of modern British theatre), Hare maintains a polite distance from confirming or denying whether or not Irving was indeed Terry’s long-term paramour, graciously allowing the ‘truth’ about their connection to become only a minor subplot in this glorious production that pays full, humane homage to both theatrical luminaries.
Over a series of some 20+ vignettes, Raison (as Terry) and Fiennes (Irving) create an almost supernatural force of connection that goes beyond mere ‘did they or didn’t they?’ tittle-tattle, with Fiennes allowing Irving to slowly but surely reveal the motivation, empathy and emotion beneath his ostensibly awkward, buttoned-up cloak of self-protection, and Raison exuding the vigour, verve and vivacity that allowed Terry to turn adversity into triumph throughout her life. He’s charismatic; she’s bewitching. You will fall in love with both of them.
Miranda Raison as Ellen Terry and Ralph Fiennes as Henry Irving in Grace Pervades
As Terry’s daughter Edith, Ruby Ashbourne Serkis acts as an anchor to keep us grounded throughout a production that could, in less capable hands than the team at the helm here, too easily have given way to melodrama, psychodrama or even tragicomedy, while Jordan Metcalfe as Edward (Terry’s son) – apparently an insufferably arrogant Nazi sympathiser – is fabulously obnoxious throughout.
Meanwhile, Bob Crowley’s artfully minimal set supplemented by video designer Akhila Krishnan’s projections (claustrophobic dressing rooms; the Cafe Royal dining room; Terry’s country cottage and theatre in Smallhythe, Kent; etc) emphasise the constant, ephemeral peaks and troughs that underpin the superficial glamour of life in the theatrical spotlight while Fotini Dimou’s absolutely gorgeous costumes and a rolling programme of lavish wigs offer delightful distraction during a smattering of intense academic debates around What Theatre Actually Means.
But Grace Pervades is, all told, Hare’s passionate billet-doux to that very subject. In putting the two most influential theatre figures of the past back onto the stage today and exploring their legacies with compassion, magnanimity and – yes! – grace, he’s reset the foundations of contemporary theatre. Greatness pervades.
Photo credits: Marc Brenner