Peak performance

Ivanov
Wyndham’s Theatre

Now or Later
Royal Court

Rain Man
Apollo

Unashamedly wordy, this play takes its audience’s intelligence as a given and offers a searching analysis of that most topical of topics, moral relativism. With dialectical theatre the challenge is to make the shifting themes of the debate feel unorchestrated and natural, as if driven by a combination of chance and the psychological needs of the characters. This is a trick that Christopher Shinn pulls off as well as Shaw ever managed it, which is not to say it’s perfect but it’s done pretty well.

John is a superbly detailed creation, a blisteringly eloquent kid whose priggish attachment to his beliefs is complicated by his homosexuality, his suicidal leanings and his desolation over a broken affair. That he’s a sharper and more intelligent replica of his father is a truth that emerges with a very satisfying lack of emphasis. In the lead role Eddie Redmayne gives a bravura portrait of youthful despair aching to make the right moral choices and torn between father-worship and father-revulsion.

He’s supported by an excellent ensemble led by Matthew Marsh as a steely Clintonesque political operator who has sacrificed his family for his career and must pay the price. Now or Later is a great play and if not quite a masterpiece then it surely promises further riches for the future. Lousy title, though.

I haven’t much taste for karaoke theatre but Rain Man, based on the film, is a revelation. The script is a masterclass in narrative construction, and the story, although a bit schmaltzy, has archetypal qualities. Charlie Babbitt and his idiot–savant brother Ray are a modern reworking of the ancient opposites, body and soul, both representing different aspects of either principle. Ray has the unpredictable shrewdness of an infant (soul) but is imprisoned by his routines (body), which he is gradually persuaded to detach himself from. Charlie begins as a vengeful, money-grabbing hustler (body) but acquires wisdom and emotional maturity (soul).

Josh Hartnett swaggers very effectively as Charlie, while Adam Godley brings something freshly adorable to Ray. With Dustin Hoffman you got a celebrity method actor with a crowded back-catalogue whose performance looked worryingly like Ratzo from Midnight Cowboy minus half a billion brain-cells. Godley’s obscurity suits the character’s otherworldiness and, with fewer tics and spasms than Hoffman, he gives Ray a rangy, chimp-like charm. The clever design by Jonathan Fensom closes down two thirds of the stage and focuses attention on the developing characters. A true pleasure, this, a play full of huge laughs which nonetheless manages to lay its fingers on the heart’s tenderest threads.