Keeping out of the mire

THEATRE REVIEW An Ideal Husband
TOURING
0 scar Wilde's play. premiered in 1895. is an excellent example of the much-decried well-made Victorian play; theatregoers, as opposed to critics, have always enjoyed the melodrama, the epigrams, the paradoxes and the satire. The fascinating thing about the dialogue is the way it foreshadows Wilde's tragedy only a few months later. "I feel that public disgrace is in store for me," says Sir Robert Chiltern; under-secretary for foreign affairs. "I feel certain, of it. I never knew what terror was before. I know it now."
Chiltern's wealth and career are founded on a Cabinet secret he sold when he was a young man. Mrs Cheveley (Kate O'Mara), in possession of a compromising letter, threatens that unless he gives his support in the House of Commons to a fraudulent scheme, she will sell the letter to the press. "You know what your English papers are like," she says. "Think of their loathsome joy. of the delight they would have in dragging you down, of the mud and the mire they would plunge you in."
Fortunately for Chiltern (well played by Michael Praed), the blackmailer is foiled and he gets off scotfree with a seat in the Cabi• net. This was clearly wishful
thinking on the part of the playwright, who was arrested for gross indecency and sentenced to two years' hard labour at the Old Bailey on May 25 1895. This enjoyable revival includes a witty and stylish performance by Fenella Fielding.
Love's Labour's Lost
ROSE THEATRE, KINGSTON
Four young men take a vow of celibacy, swearing that they will forsake the company of women for three years and concentrate on their studies. Four attractive women who arrive from France throw their plan into doubt. Shakespeare is showing off as wit, punster and sonneteer in this comedy, a satire on romantic idealism and pedantic affectation. The self-indulgent, ostentatious verbal gamesmanship, the Latin quips, the witty repartee, the scholarly jargon, are not easy for a modern audience to follow. The biggest laugh invariably comes when Constable Dull admits that he hasn't understood one
word. The play is not helped by Peter Hall's uninspired and poorly costumed production which has the actors standing in a line. The personalities are nil, much of the acting is indifferent and the comic mugging is dreadfully unfunny.
In the Red and Brown Water
YOUNG VIC
A Nigerian myth a tragedy of barrenness has been relocated to modern Louisiana in the US. Tarell Alvin McCraney, author of the infinitely superior The Brothers Size, has a distinctive voice and rhythm: his language is spare, idiomatic, lyrical and oblique. His characters speak their own stage directions. The theatre is transformed into a six-inch deep swimming pool. The cast splash about in the water, which gives Walter Meierjohann's production an extra appeal, but cannot disguise a disappointing text.
Robert Tanitch