Written by Martin Crimp and directed by Harry Reid, this is a terrific production of a terrific play.
Performances are superb: hilarious, riveting, hair-raising.
Crimp is one of the modern masters of the dramatic form, and this is a perfect opportunity to see this mastery manifest.
To explain the skill, let me start with the purpose. Dealing with Clair is about dishonesty – in its multiple forms, and in its most devastating consequences.
Clair (Olivia Hall-Smith) is a real estate agent. She’s helping Liz (Talia Benatar) and Mike (Arkia Ashraf) sell their house. They’ve accepted an offer, but then another buyer appears. James (Daniel Fletcher) is offering more and can settle more quickly.
But don’t be deceived – this isn’t a play about the housing market. Sure, the scenario invites consideration of Crimp’s key purpose, but that’s only the beginning.
To interrogate dishonesty, Crimp employs drama’s full potential.
The script is replete with contrasting motifs that evoke the tension between the revealed and the unrevealed. Liz and Mike hide a stain on the carpet. Clair is silent when James asks personal questions. James longs for friends who would pass him on the street without acknowledging him. Anna (Jade Fuda), the nanny, has a bedroom with no windows. Anna is never fully dressed. In moments of physical intimacy, Liz and Mike ask What if Anna were to come in? only to say Let her!
And Crimp effectively employs drama’s ability to contrast action with word in real time. Several characters say they don’t smoke – while smoking. Liz expresses disapproval of Mike’s attitude – while passionately embracing him.
Then there’s the stylistic element of the dialogue of deceit. Facts that remain unsaid. Euphemisms that hide. Half sentences that never actually …..
And there’s the subject matter of this dialogue; not just the wheeling and dealing of buying and selling, but topics even less savoury. There’s a constantly hinted at sexual rivalry. And there’s a magnificent set piece in which Mike asserts what it is that goes on every time a man and women are in a room together, a sexual subtext of supposed inevitability. Mike won’t say this outright, but claims everyone knows what he’s talking about. He’s dishonest even about dishonesty. (And his wife’s response to this is shocking.)
And then there are the reported conversations. Is that what Clair said? I’m not saying they were her actual words. Something less than Truth is the lingua franca here.
And there’s the repetition of phrases that take on new meanings, or more accurately, soiled ones. What does James do? He deals in pictures. Repeated later, this now evokes something far more sinister. It’s not just that meaning changes or is fluid; it’s as though it’s going sour – until only the worst interpretations remain.
In Crimp’s world, language is inherently slippery and dangerous.
And to what does all this duplicity point?
A terrible selfishness. A shocking disregard for others.
Over the phone, in a conversation that casts a frighteningly long shadow, Clair tells her mother that in her job she meets aggression, but not violence, never violence. But something very close to violence permeates much of the play: in the way Liz and Mike treat Anna, in the way they treat a tradesman (Bayley Prendergast), in the way they never connect with their baby.
And then there’s James….
In doing violence to Truth, we open a doorway to violence to people.
As I said, the script of Dealing with Clair reveals a dramatic master at work, and this production shines with a terrifying brilliance.
Paul Gilchrist
Dealing With Clair by Martin Crimp
presented by Irregular Programming & Old Fitz Theatre
at the Old Fitz until 25 July
Image by Robert Miniter
Theatre Red 