H&H Series Thursday, November 9, 2017 31 ETCETERA Underdog or top dog, why every role is a different peak
Don Warrington has an understated humour that doesn’t BRIDGET GALTON make for an easy phone interview. It can feel he’s merely asks Belsize Park actor tolerating my questions about his latest role alongside Don Warrington about his Christian Slater and Kris latest role in David Marshall in David Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize winning Glengarry Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Glen Ross. Ross Is Mamet’s spare, dense dialogue as hard to master as everyone says? “We’re doing our best,” he says drily. very specific with what he wants. The ensemble piece is an It’s a bit like doing Shakespeare, excoriating takedown of the they both have particular American Dream as a desperate disciplines you have to adhere to.” group of Chicago estate agents Warrington should know, last lie, burgle and manipulate to year he climbed the acting triumph in a cutthroat office Everest that is King Lear in an where only the top salesmen will acclaimed production in survive. Manchester. Lacking confidence and self- Asked if any part is easy after esteem, Warrington’s ageing Lear he says: “I would love to Don Warrington as George Aaronow in Glengarry Glen Ross Picture: MARC BRENNER George is bottom of the heap in think that but that was that this ruthlessly hierarchised mountain, and this is this are always in debate about what it professional debut at Hampstead happen next. But they made it into workplace. mountain. Every one is different means to be an American. I don’t Theatre in 1973, playing opposite something else and , well we all “The environment is very and every mountain requires a lot think the relevance has changed, Leonard Rossiter and Frances De know the story.” testosterone filled. Men trying to of attention to detail. As an actor people are still trying to make a La Tour in Eric Chappell’s The He’s lived around Primrose Hill make a sale. You live or die it doesn’t feel any easier. You just killing.” Banana Box. It transferred to the for 40 years: “Primrose Hill has according to what you sell so it’s a get on with what’s in front of The son of a Trinidad West End and was turned into hit changed dramatically, it used to be pretty driven atmosphere. George you.” politician, Warrington moved to sit-com Rising Damp which made a fairly dilapidated area where has been left behind by the Does he think this play has the UK as a boy, living in Warrington among the first black people with artistic aspirations changes in the corporate world, dated since its premiere at the Warrington Road, Newcastle from actors to be a household TV name. but no money would live, I’ve he’s one of the more depressing National Theatre in the 1980s? where he took his stage name. Asked if he knew it would be a stayed because I like what I know characters.” “It’s about the American dream, After studying at The Drama hit he says: “One expects that you and it’s very familiar to me.” He adds: “It’s the speed of conscience and morality, about Centre in Prince of Wales Road, do a job it ends and you move on, Glengarry Glen Ross runs at thought that’s difficult, Mamet is the nation in microsom. People Kentish Town, he made his you don’t know what’s going to The Playhouse until February 3.
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Review
THE SLAVES OF SOLITUDE American serviceman Lieutenant and, in a standout scene, meets a Hampstead Theatre Pike and German émigrée Vicki former pupil (an excellent Tom ✩✩ Kugelmann changes the dynamic, Milligan), now 17 and a soldier. but it’s never as simple as a love But elsewhere, the subtle mood of Patrick Hamilton’s celebrated triangle, or people emboldened by the novel is lost in choppy novel is brought to stage by the war to pursue romance. dialogue and artificial stakes. adaptor Nicholas Wright and Instead, the focus is on the However, there’s great support director Jonathan Kent. Centred introverted Miss Roach – who by from Lucy Cohu as the calculated on a boarding house in (fictional) nature and by learned English glamour girl, Clive Francis as the Henley in 1943, it makes for an reserve struggles to express loathsome Thwaites, Richard Tate evocative but uneven herself. Played with aching as the mysterious Mr Prest, and production. poignancy by Fenella Woolgar, we Daon Bruni as the boozy charmer. see her flinching at barbs and Tim Hatley’s set is a feast of Thirtysomething Miss Roach is “banter”, or separated from the claustrophobic prints, with small stuck with the retirees after her gregarious group, a lamp drawing tables crowded together: a place London flat was bombed in the us in to see emotions flash across where you’re never alone, but can Blitz. Worst is Mr Thwaites, a her face. easily be lonely. It makes Miss prejudiced bully whose needling The pervasiveness of war is Roach’s search for independence makes the communal areas a also evident, as Miss Roach fears a and ambition a quietly cheering nightmare. full moon – which gave German kind of heroism. Fenella Woolgar and Daon Broni in The Slaves of Solitude at Hampstead Theatre. The arrival of African- planes a clearer path to London – Marianka Swain Picture: MANUEL HARLAN