After the lofty reaches of theoretical physics in Copenhagen, the studio’s contribution to Sheffield Theatres’ Michael Frayn season, Benefactors, offers us something altogether more grounded. Set in the 1960s, this play centres on two couples – ambitious architect David and his all round good egg of a wife Jane, alongside their rather scruffier neighbours, the malcontent Colin and dowdy Sheila.
Although the entire drama is set in Jane and David’s kitchen, where parasite-like Sheila and Colin seem to have taken up residence, these domestic machinations extrapolate to wider social concerns. David is lead architect on a slum clearance development in South London. After applying his protractor to the plans at the kitchen table, it becomes clear that the only way he can create the necessary living units in the available space is to go high rise. Jane, his supporter in all other things, becomes increasingly worried by the project and finds herself paying regular visits to the residents of the soon to be bulldozed Basuto Road – a nice post-colonial nod. Meanwhile the scowling Colin sees a way to disrupt his more successful friend’s endeavors by using his cynical brand of journalism to protest against the towers. Caught between her resentful husband and the friends she has come to idolise, Sheila leaves Colin and moves wholesale into David and Jane’s house like a mousey infestation.
It’s not just the kitchen décor that feels dated in this production, it’s also the central issue. These socially perilous skyscrapers can now be seen all over the London skyline. Sheffield’s own mass housing development Park Hill is now embarking on a second life as pied-à-terres for young professionals. A play about the problems endemic in ageing high-rise housing might feel more relevant. This slightly passé feeling is exacerbated by the fact that a cast of fine actors make the relationships feel more compelling than the politics. Simon Wilson invests David with a missionary-like zeal and yet his fixation on the totemic towers mean the residents remain nothing more than stick men etched his architectural plans. Abigail Cruttenden plays Jane as a woman breaking through her own personal glass ceiling, after years propping up David’s ego and career, by the end of the play she embarks on her own. Andrew Woodall is deliciously dislikable as the vindictive Colin, a clever man trapped in a humdrum marriage due to a youthful indiscretion. Rebecca Lacey as the needy Sheila sometimes over-eggs the Sybil Fawlty-style drawling but her cheery ‘cooey’ as she ‘pops in’ yet again chills the blood.
It’s clear that Frayn’s particular genius lies in meshing big ideas with compelling characters and sharp dialogue. In Copenhagen the mix feels about right but in Charlotte Gwinner’s rather prosaic production of Benefactors the ideas feel somewhat underpowered. With a title like Democracy, the centrepiece of the season promises broader horizons.
Benefactors runs in the Crucible Studio until Saturday 24 March.
It is part of a Michael Frayn season which runs until 31 March.