My Zinc Bed - Variety

"I'd like a drink," says Paul Peplow (Steven Mackintosh) near the end of the first act of "My Zinc Bed," and suddenly, exhilaratingly, one feels the hairs start to rise on the back of the neck. That's a not unfamiliar response in the theater according to David HareDavid Hare, whose "Racing Demon" -- his reigning masterwork to date -- stilled an entire house in act two with the quietly spoken admission, "It's too late." As is Hare's paradoxical way, a dramatist sometimes given to overwriting has the contrary ability to cut ruthlessly to the quick. And so he does, as the play's dense text begins to find its own definition well away from its near-superfluity of themes. Compulsion/control, addiction/ambition: Hare mercilessly explores such abstractions and more. But when the thirtysomething poet Paul voices his seemingly simple request, one feels a separate intoxication that comes from Hare's ability to send us hurtling -- and hurting -- into the night (or, at the very least, to the Royal Court bar).

One could argue that Paul pipes up not a moment too soon, lest "My Zinc Bed" lose that audience addicted to incident and plot and all the other niceties conspicuously absent from Hare's first play in two years. Instead, this latest work can be read as an expansion upon (among Hare plays) "Skylight" even as it refracts through its three characters his abiding question -- how do we live now? Those most familiar with Hare will be tempted to see the play as a portrait of his divided self, with the playwright's own voice (and past) animating both the romantically minded young man of words, Paul, and the seasoned onetime Marxist-turned-money man, Victor Quinn (Tom WilkinsonTom Wilkinson), the cyber-millionaire who becomes Paul's boss.

Not for the first time, Hare is writing about utopian dreams and dystopian reality, complete with a lament for the word "ideological" folded within a wounding romance (shades, again, here of "Skylight"). The result is a troubling and deceptively poignant play that may shut some theatergoers out while leaving those alive to it in a debate as fevered as that of the talk-happy characters. More than any Hare play of late, "My Zinc Bed" shows its author in Shavian mode -- understandably enough, given its writer-director's first-rate staging several years back of "Heartbreak House" for the Almeida Theater. And its penchant for conversation at the expense of actual activity may limit the new play's commercial appeal. (In New York terms, the play is a natural for Lincoln Center's Mitzi Newhouse auditorium.)

Unlike, say, "Amy's View," at heart a boulevard play set alight by Judi Dench's blazing central performance, "My Zinc Bed" writes up to a public willing to accept quotations from Conrad and Jung as well as the deliberately placeless limbo in which the play is set. In her problematic design for last season's "The Real Thing," Vicki Mortimer seemed unsure how much visual neutrality Tom StoppardTom Stoppard's comedy of heartache could support. This time around, Mortimer's aesthetic cool -- the sliding slate-gray panels of the set suggest so many zinc beds, at once forbidding and chic -- is in perfect sync with the play. That's to say that "My Zinc Bed" may give off the air of so much talking at you only to deepen into a play that speaks deeply to those realms of experience that most of us prefer to put to one side.

Our narrator-guide through the evening -- and through one cataclysmic summer in his life -- is Paul, who ends up embarked upon a descent into a private inferno of amorous and alcoholic dependency. (The second act cues all this with some unnecessary thunder rolls.) And yet, anyone expecting a TV movie-style depiction of alcoholism, or even "Days of Wine and Roses," should think again. Hare swears off re-creating the DTs in favor of a play that seems both wrenched out of empathy and experience and somewhat abstracted from it. (For that reason, as well, Mortimer's non-specific set is a help.

So is lighting from Rick Fisher and Judith Greenwood that slices across the stage.) A penniless journalist when he first meets Victor, Paul ends up not only in the dot-commer's employ but in the clinch with his Scandinavian wife Elsa (Julia Ormond). A second recovering addict (her poison was cocaine), Elsa has a come-hither gift for crossing and uncrossing her legs as well as a rather shocking self-loathing beneath that sleek facade. Does Victor know about the affair and silently accede to it? That much we are never told, just as the minutiae of cyberspace entrepreneurship either don't interest, or has eluded, Hare.

Instead, Hare seems to be offering his own 21st-century riff on a defining play from the 1980s like Michael Frayn's "Benefactors," where alarms can be sounded by the lone word "help." To be sure, Hare is too canny not to enliven proceedings: The play abounds with jokes on topics ranging from London place names (Camberwell vs. Regents Park) to Microsoft, Mozart and Wordsworth and (an especially good one) the regimen of bus conductors. But beneath the quips lies the mournfully calibrated pulse of a play whose title implies that true knowledge only comes too late.

The three parts must be treats, and also a shade treacherous, for their performers, each of whom exists to be stripped bare (not literally, for a change in London) as the play proceeds. In her first London theater role in nine years, Ormond is undeniably watchable playing the kind of woman of mystery made for Juliette Binoche, who might arrive transparently at the affect that a somewhat stagy Ormond is forever gesticulating to achieve. (Quite why Elsa and Victor have names drawn from "Casablanca" is a separate mini-mystery.)

Both men, thankfully, are brilliant. Despite clear press night nerves, Wilkinson ("The Full Monty""The Full Monty") unnervingly suggests Hare in both demeanor and accent even as the character's fate makes a crushing argument for the limits of articulacy. To that extent, Victor finds an inheritor beyond his greatest imaginings in Paul, and the ever-astonishing Mackintosh positively burns in the part. "The search to complete ourselves with another person can never succeed," says Paul, articulately, near the end, building to as bleak a conclusion as Hare has yet concocted. "Is everything loss?" Hare asks in "Racing Demon," and "My Zinc Bed" dares to answer in a play that makes a straightforward request for a drink into a bottomless admission of defeat.

My Zinc Bed - Information Reviews

THIS PRODUCTION HAS NOW CLOSED: For current London West End theatre shows please use the menu on the left hand side.

Play by David Hare. Directed by David Hare. Designed by Vicki Mortimer. Lighting by Rick Fisher. Sound by Paul Arditti.

"If you don't believe the rich spend their time on this earth effectively f***ing over the poor, then I don't see how you make any sense of what goes on in the world at all."

A successful entrepreneur, Victor Quinn (Tom Wilkinson), employs a young poet, Paul Peplow (Steven Mackintosh), to decorate the legend of his fast-growing Internet business. Paul's growing friendship with Victor's wife Elsa (Julia Ormond) ensures that nothing prepares either man for an outcome which makes for a compelling story of romance and addiction.

Cast: Julia Ormond, Steven Mackintosh and Tom Wilkinson

The 1970's saw two Royal Court premieres of plays by David Hare - Slag in 1971 followed by Teeth'n'Smiles in 1975. The next two decades saw critically acclaimed, award-winning productions of his plays - including Plenty (recently revived at the Albery Theatre), The Secret Rapture, The absence of War, Skylight, Amys View (starring Dame Judi Dench at the Lyttelton and Aldwych Theatres June 1997 to April 1998), The Judas Kiss (starring Liam Neeson at the Playhouse Theatre March to April 1998) and The Blue Room (starring Nicole Kidman at the Donmar Warehouse, Sept to Oct 1998) - at major venues in the UK and beyond. There was however a long absence from The Royal Court Theatre. This ended when he returned in 1999 with Via Dolorosa, his remarkable one-man journey through the Middle East, a play which Hare himself credits with changing his view of both the writing and the acting processes. In Via Dolorosa, he was both playwright and performer whilst his new play sees him combining writing with directing.

THE ROYAL COURT THEATRE The Jerwood Theatre Downstairs Previewed 7 September, Opened 14 September 2000, Closed 28 October 2000

Extracts from the reviews:

"...David Hare's brilliant, metaphorical new work - easily the best new play of the year so far - is about absorption at all levels of private and public life. It is told, as it were, by the poet, Paul Peplow, a recovering, alcoholic, who takes to the stage from the stalls and recounts the events of one long, hot summer. Sir David has a habit of zipping in on the zeitgeist - of tapping the public mood about the politics of friendship and betrayal unmatched by any other contemporary playwright. His tone of voice can get up your nose. This stems from his ruthless objectivity about his characters... The skill and passion with which Hare lays out his arguments and draws he characters into their positions of dependency are completely transfixing... Julia Ormond is utterly enchanting in the role, while Tom Wilkinson as Victor plays his magisterial aloofness with a sly finesse and panache... The playwright himself directs with absolute assurance. Each sentence, virtually, has an inbuilt detonating charge..." The Daily Mail

"What an immense pleasure just to watch and listen to the three actors in David Hare's new play My Zinc Bed. As Paul Peplow, Steven Mackintosh introduces, narrates, and frames the action. He never once leaves the stage, yet never for a moment shows strain. He doesn't even seem to do anything, merely to be, which he does beautifully... My Zinc Bed for a long time does not feel like "a David Hare play", even though it has his wit, his humour, his appreciation of the sensuous things in life. The richness of texture that was Amy's View's greatest achievement is gone, and so is the overt socio-political argument. Instead, My Zinc Bed has a new leanness; a new kind of tension in its rhythm, too. You do not know where you are with it: which becomes another important pleasure. Hare himself directs, and the economy of his production is a further pleasure. Vicki Mortimer's designs are sparse and Rick Fisher's lighting does wonderful changes of colour and intensity... As long as you can't tell what it means to be about - apart from being about itself - My Zinc Bed is almost completely satisfying. There are moments, especially with Victor in a long scene near the end, when you can't miss what the play is about, and then it begins to creak, although not offensively. Capitalism as another form of addiction: I don't object to the point, merely to Hare's over-emphasis..." The Financial Times

"Faith has long obsessed David Hare. After dealing in Via Dolorosa with imprisoning convictions he returns in his new play to contemporary England and to our various substitutes for political or religious belief. The result is dense, rich and engrossing, even if sometimes the social commentary is shadowed by Warner Brothers melodrama. Addiction is one of the prime themes of the play: addiction to alcohol, love or the transient adrenalin of business... If anything, Hare floats too many ideas. But he is very good on the acrid solitude of a staled marriage and the difficulty of conquering one's debasing compulsions. And, as always, his writing is laced with a sharp, suggestive wit... Two sides of the triangle in Hare's own production are perfectly formed: Julia Ormond as Elsa not only comes up with an exact Scandinavian accent but hauntingly creates a woman who is irreparably damaged. Steven Mackintosh also has the right hollow-cheeked intensity as the poet who cannot quite quash his faith in the liberating embrace of alcohol. Only Tom Wilkinson, while conveying Quinn's capitalist grandeur, seems at the moment to be offering an unfinished sketch rather than a complete portrait..." The Guardian

"Victor Quinn used to be a communist; now he's a commissar of the internet boom. Played with inscrutable waggishness by Tom Wilkinson, this wealthy entrepreneur is one of the three characters in David Hare's new play My Zinc Bed, a fascinating and forceful contribution to that new class of dramas that frets about the moral vacuum left by the collapse of the old ideological certainties. What do you do when your faith in a cause or in yourself evaporates? Hare's play contrasts Victor's way of coping with such loss to the survival techniques of Paul Peplow (Steven Mackintosh) a young, broke poet who comes to interview him and finds himself recruited as a copywriter... My Zinc Bed has its faults. The initial set up is not very plausible; it is repetitive; and some of the lines bristle with thematic obviousness, as when Paul tells Victor: "You must live with your anger as I must live with my disease." But the passion of the writing is enormously impressive..." The Independent

My Zinc Bed - Review

Stanton Treads the Boards, Almost

My Zinc Bed, a new play by one of Britain's most notable stage directors, David Hare (who directed Nicole Kidman to such good effect in The Blue Room), examines capitalism and addiction in the Internet age. The Playbill for this production at London's Royal Court Theatre features a long quote from Diseasing of America:

[A]ddiction is not a chemical side effect of a drug. Rather, addiction is a direct result of the psychoactive effects of a substance — of the way it changes our sensations. The experience itself is what the person becomes addicted to. In other words, when narcotics relieve pain, or when cocaine produces a feeling of exhilaration, or when alcohol or gambling creates a sense of power, or when shopping or eating indicates to people that they are being cared for, it is the feeling to which the person becomes addicted. No other explanation — about supposed chemical bondings or inbred biological deficiencies — is required. And none of these other theories comes close to making sense of the most obvious aspects of addiction.

Some people seem to behave excessively in all areas of life, including using drugs heavily. This even extends into legal drug use. For example, those who smoke also drink more coffee. But this tendency to do unhealthy or antisocial things extends beyond the simple use of drugs. Illicit drug users have more accidents even when not using drugs. Those arrested for drunk driving frequently also have arrest records for traffic violations when they aren't drunk. In other words, people who get drunk and go out on the road are frequently the same people who drive recklessly when they're sober. In the same way, smokers have the highest rates of car accidents and traffic violations, and are more likely to drink when they drive. That people misuse many drugs at once and engage in other risky and antisocial behaviors at the same time suggests that these are people who don't especially value their bodies and health or the health of the people around them.

7 September - 28 October at 7.30pm. Saturday matinees at 3.30pm.
Direction: David Hare. Design: Vicki Mortimer.
Lighting: Rick Fisher. Sound: Paul Arditti.
Cast: Steven Mackintosh, Julia Ormond, Tom Wilkinson.
Royal Court Theatre

My Zinc Bed, Written & directed by David Hare

"If you don't believe the rich spend their time on this earth effectively fucking over the poor, I don't see how you make any sense of what goes on in the world at all."

A successful entrepreneur, Victor Quinn (Tom Wilkinson, The Full Monty, Shakespeare in Love), employs a young poet, Paul Peplow (Steven Mackintosh, Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, Our Mutual Friend), to decorate the legend of his fast-growing Internet business. Paul's growing friendship with Victor's wife Elsa (Julia Ormond, Legends of the Fall, Sabrina) ensures that nothing prepares either man for an outcome which makes for a compelling story of romance and addiction.

My Zinc Bed - Reviews

REVIEWS OF PAST PRODUCTIONS

MY ZINC BED Written & directed by David Hare
JERWOOD THEATRE DOWNSTAIRS 7 September - 28 October

(L to R) Tom Wilkinson as Victor, Julia Ormond as Elsa, Steven Mackintosh as Paul
Production photography by John Haynes

Direction: David Hare. Design: Vicki Mortimer. Lighting: Rick Fisher. Sound: Paul Arditti.
Cast: Steven Mackintosh, Julia Ormond, Tom Wilkinson.

"Three characters only, in a play about love, addiction and loss of faith. But what a play, and what a wonderful evening at the home of new British playwriting with a leading dramatist who was last represented on this hallowed stage in 1976!
"Sir David Hare has a habit of zipping in on the zeitgeist, of tapping the public mood about the politics of friendship and betrayal unmatched by any other contemporary playwright.
"…the entrepreneur of the Internet, Victor Quinn, employs the penniless poet who has come to interview him for a newspaper. That poet, Paul Peplow, played with tremulous sincerity and bewitching sympathy by Steven Mackintosh, is a recovering alcoholic. Victor’s Danish wife Elsa, formerly a cocaine addict, and much younger than him, recognises a kindred spirit. She proceeds to get more kindred. Julia Ormond is utterly enchanting, while Tom Wilkinson as Victor plays his magisterial aloofness with a sly finesse and panache. Victor wants to test Paul’s mettle. Paul knows that he cannot love Elsa without alcohol. The way Sir David posits this problem in clever, supple dialogue as one of real theatrical concern, marks a playwright at the peak of his powers.
"…Each sentence has an inbuilt detonating charge. Mr Mackintosh sidles up to the stage from the back of the stalls, and recounts his story before enacting the struggle it involved. Addiction is the modern fashion. This pressing phenomenon is the subject of the best new play of the year so far."

Michael Coveney DAILY MAIL Friday 15 September

"Faith has long obsessed David Hare. After dealing with convictions in Via Dolorosa , he returns in this new play to contemporary England and to our various substitutes for political or religious belief. The result is dense, rich and engrossing
"Addiction is one of the prime themes: addiction to alcohol, love or to the transient adrenalin of business as a substitute for ideals. Thus we see a penurious poet and reformed alcoholic, Paul Peplow, hired by an ex-Marxist millionaire, Victor Quinn, as a copywriter for his burgeoning internet business.
"But Quinn has a young Danish wife, Elsa who has also been rescued from drugs and drink. Clearly Quinn is playing some strange Mephistophelian game in which he seems to be luring the poet back in to alcoholic degradation to solace his wife and relieve his deadlocked marriage.
"On one level the play is a bizarre triangular drama with odd echoes of an old Ingrid Bergman movie, as when Elsa cries "I’m not a stranger to self hatred". But Hare’s real theme is the echoing insecurity of modern life, in which compulsions take the place of convictions. It is no accident that two of his characters are addicts, reformed or otherwise, and that Quinn has replaced his one time Marxist beliefs with the capitalist illusion of control. We are all hooked on something, Hare suggests, and if business is largely a matter of creating a nebulous confidence, then so too is love.
"Observant wit mates with a yearning for lost ideals; and two sides of the triangle in Hare’s own production are perfectly formed. Julia Ormond as Elsa hauntingly creates a woman who is irreparable damaged. Steven Mackintosh has the right hollow-cheeked intensity as the poet who cannot quite quash his faith in the liberating embrace of alcohol."

Michael Billington THE GUARDIAN Friday 15 September

"What an immense pleasure just to watch and listen to the three actors in David hare’s new lay My Zinc Bed. As Paul Peplow, Steven Mackintosh introduces, narrates, and frames the action. He never once leaves the stage, yet never for a moment shows strain. He doesn’t even seem to do anything, merely to be, which he does beautifully. He’s a vulnerable boy, a stiff washed-out reformed alcoholic, a man in love, a crummy journalist, a has-been, an adorable drunk, a shrewd poet, an adulterer, a man with all life ahead of him, a brilliant ironist, a man of honour with tears in his eyes. He falls in love with Elsa Quinn, a married woman and former alcoholic; and, as Julia Ormond plays her, you fall in love with both her and him. It’s not just their bones and their skin and their youthfulness, it’s the transparency of their acting, the complete truthfulness of their behaviour.
"Ormond’s Elsa in fact changes more than Mackintosh’s Peplow; her emotions are more violent. The contrast between her strengths and weaknesses is moving; and her beauty, her composure, her despair become breathtaking. Victor Quinn – her husband, a former Communist, now a famous capitalist computer chief – is played by Tom Wilkinson. This is the hardest role of all: the chivalrous cuckold, the controller of human destinies who cannot control his own, the one in whom the play’s politics become most overt. Wilkinson has the authority, the urbanity, the humanity to bring it off, and his virtues make the play’s human triangle enthralling."

Alastair Macaulay FINANCIAL TIMES Monday 18 September