Peter Viney's Blog

The Whale
by Samuel D. Hunter

Directed by Laurence Boswell

Ustinov Studio
Bath Theatre Royal

Thursday 10^thMay 2018, 14.30

CAST

Shuler Hensley – Charlie
Ruth Gemmell – Liz
Oscar Batterham – Elder Thomas
Rosie Sheehy – Ellie
Teresa Banham – Mary

Charlie (Shuler Hensley) and Liz (Ruth Gemmell)

Bath’s Ustinov Studio has Shuler Hensley in the lead role which won him the OBIE Award for Performance and the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in New York.

We booked this one under the impression it was by comedian Reginald D. Hunter, never having heard of playwright Samuel D. Hunter, but never mind! It was totally brilliant, a lesson in acting and direction after last weekend with abysmal productions at the National Theatre (2 x 2 star) and far worse at Shakespeare’s Globe with as You like It (*). We’re immediately in a different league, with the audience transfixed, on the edge of their seats for a full two hours without interval. Normally 90-100 minutes seems long. This one rocketed by.

I’m hyper-critical of American plays with British actors, and here we had Shuler Hensey plus a British team of four. I hadn’t read the programme in advance. I assumed all four were genuinely American (though I started to realize I recognized faces). That’s a first for me, I was convinced. I often criticize American plays on the grounds that they either go for the full musical, or it’s a cast of four or five, or less, one set only, and a great deal of heart-searching in the script. While this ticks all three boxes, it shows how good it can be when the formula (or rather financial constriction) works.

Liz (Ruth Gemmell). The photo is Charlie’s dead partner.

The play is intriguing, the cast is more so. Charlie is a gay, 600 pound (or 42 stone) online AmLit tutor (no, his students have never seen him) dealing with the basics at the lowest level. AmLit 101. The Great Gatsby. Moby Dick. Song of Myself by Walt Whitman. The stuff you have to teach. And I have. His students make inane comments on the classics (very funny too) though Whitman might be a tad esoteric for a British audience … not that he’s unknown, but they wouldn’t have been made to read him in school so might get less of the humour. My companion has way more poetry books than I do, but had never read Whitman. It didn’t matter. As I said, no one stirred in two hours, eyes were locked on the stage.

The play is divided into 5 days. The backdrop rises to reveal projected sea waves to mark each day from Monday to Friday, because after Monday, his only friend, Liz, a nurse, predicts he will not survive the week. Given two hours without an interval, I wondered if waves and wave sounds were a good idea but no one felt compelled to pee.

Elder Thomas (Oscar Batterham) and Charlie.

Charlie is interrupted in what seems like a heart attack by the arrival of a 19 year old Mormon missionary, Elder Thomas. Elder Thomas wishes to tell Charlie about the church, but as Liz reveals (while telling him to “fuck off”) Charlie hates Mormonism as it caused the death of his boyfriend / partner, Alan.  However, he persuades our missionary to read him a short essay on Moby Dick. Revelations about Alan, Liz and Charlie would be a plot spoiler. I won’t do it. Suffice it to say there is a lot on Mormonism and missions. In his white shirt, black trousers and name badge, he looks as if he has escaped from The Bookof Mormon in the West End. Elder Thomas (Oscar Batterham) is the main humour focus in the play.

The 17 year old daughter, Ellie arrives. Charlie hasn’t seen her since he left her mother when she was two (and went off with his boyfriend). Ellie is an amazing creation by Rosie Sheehy here. The teenager from hell. She finds him, the smell, the apartment disgusting. It is a very powerful performance.

Ellie (Rosie Sheey) and Elder Thomas (Oscar Batterham)

The plot unwinds, always fascinating. Ellie meets Elder Thomas, and we meet Ellie’s mom, Mary. The storyline is beautifully constructed. Elder Thomas is not who he seems at all. We get Mary’s side of the story.

Mary (Teresa Banham)

It’s what’s behind it that makes it so gripping. “Charlie” in the biggest, yet most realistic fat suit I have seen, does at first appear “disgusting” with his size, his wobbling body, his wheeze, his sweat stained T-shirt, his attack on food and soft drinks. Ellie tells us there’s a smell. We can imagine it. He has a horrific and realistic choking fit after trying to inhale a large sandwich too greedily to chew.

The thing is that we gradually get drawn in to empathize with Charlie. He genuinely admires the truth in his online students’ offhand or plain dumb reactions to the literature he’s teaching. He’s positive, optimistic, glass half full, in spite of his appalling physical state.  He genuinely wants contact with Ellie. We realize that Mary, the ex-wife , and Liz genuinely care about him and why. We realize he started eating endlessly as his partner died by semi-starving himself to death. So much of that is in Shuler Hensley’s eyes. I can see why they prefer a small space like the Ustinov. He can fix the audience with his looks. He turns “disgusting” into “loveable” by sheer force of acting.

Charlie (Shuler Hensley)

There is a lot of symbolism in the text … the story of Moby Dick and of Jonah and The Whale become influential and entwined.

Not many critics made the trip to Bath. It’s a shame. Shuler Hensley is a hugely acclaimed American actor with good reason. He’s unmissable. The Ustinov has been consistently high quality for years (Though we only saw the Florian Zeller plays they debuted once they got to London). You would have got tickets this afternoon. It’s about the best production we have seen so far this year.

RATING 5 STAR:

*****

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
The Times ****
Thomas W. Hodgkinson, Sunday Times ****
Jeremy Brien, The Stage ***

LINKS ON THIS BLOG:

LAURENCE BOSWELL
Punishment Without Revenge, Ustinov Studio 2013
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Bath 2016

OSCAR BATTERHAM
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Bath 2016

ROSIE SHEEHY
Strife by John Galsworthy, Chichester 2016

TERESA BANHAM
Measure for Measure, RSC 2012