'Grace Pervades' review — a highly theatrical vehicle for Ralph Fiennes and Miranda Raison

Read our review of David Hare's play Grace Pervades, now in performances at the Theatre Royal Haymarket to 11 July.

Summary

• David Hare's play Grace Pervades comes to the West End
• The show centres on real-life theatrical legends Henry Irving and Ellen Terry
• Ralph Fiennes and Miranda Raison reprise their acclaimed roles at the Theatre Royal Haymarket
• Ruby Ashbourne Serkis excels as Terry's daughter

In his 32nd play, David Hare turns his attention to the world of late Victorian theatre and its two greatest stars: Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, who elevated the status of actors as artists. Their relationship was devoted and may have gone beyond that of colleagues and friends. First performed at Theatre Royal Bath last year, it now arrives at Theatre Royal Haymarket, and if this paean to the stage leans more staid than sparkling, it still makes for a highly theatrical vehicle for Ralph Fiennes (Hare’s muse) and Miranda Raison, as well as showcasing the plummiest array of accents in years.

After a brief marriage at 17 to painter G.F. Watts (30 years her senior), Terry embarked on a relationship with architect Edward Godwin, which resulted in two illegitimate children, and a temporary retirement from acting. At the home of her elder sister and theatrical mentor Kate (Kathryn Wilder), she is invited to return to the stage as Irving’s leading lady at London’s Lyceum Theatre, where he has taken over the management and hopes to have his opportunity to finally shine after playing 700 different roles in the provinces.

Fiennes is suitably angular and gaunt as this workaholic actor-manager who was aware of his “heavy” and “dour” presence – he served as a prototype for his employee Bram Stoker’s Dracula, after all. The delightful Raison is mellifluous of voice and perfectly demonstrates how Terry remained girlish her entire life. She was praised for her “naturalness”, which was in many ways a backhanded compliment. It’s suggested that under Terry’s sunny disposition lay a deep melancholy – her personal life was troubled and she was devoted to Irving, yet was held back by always playing second fiddle and perpetually denied the chance to play Shakespeare’s most independent heroine, Rosalind in As You Like It.

Jeremy Herrin’s production is on the leisurely side and indulges Hare’s tendency towards exposition, with some unnecessary interludes. We’re informed that Irving and Terry were magic in performance and it’s a mistake to try to recreate snatches of their most famous Shakespearean roles with a style that now comes across as mannered. Bob Crowley’s set designs are a touch sparse at the Haymarket but there are some lovely stage pictures devised by costume designer Fotini Dimou, including a recreation of the “beetlewing” dress that Terry wore as Lady Macbeth and was immortalised in the painting by John Singer Sargent.

The play also explores the lives of Terry's two children, who shook up theatre by embracing the modernism that was so abhorrent to Irving. Edward Gordon Craig (a splendidly obnoxious Jordan Metcalfe) was the worst kind of spoilt nepo baby (one who believed himself to be a genius), pontificating to the hilt but never getting anything done.

There was also the far more sympathetic Edith Craig who lived in an artistic lesbian ménage à trois at Smallhythe Place, her mother’s Kentish country retreat (now a National Trust property). Playing a role that’s a close cousin to her recent turn as Flora Crewe in Indian Ink, Ruby Ashbourne Serkis adopts an even posher accent, and the chemistry with writer Christabel “Chris” St John (Maggie Service) and artist Clare “Tony” Atwood (Wilder) has a naturalness that Fiennes and Raison’s lacks.

Overall, Grace Pervades features a good sprinkling of wit, and is an affectionate homage to the chains of theatrical inheritance.

Grace Pervades is at the Theatre Royal Haymarket to 11 July. Book Grace Pervades tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Photo credit: Grace Pervades (Photos by Marc Brenner)