Riveting and sumptuous: The Motive and the Cue, at the Lyttelton Theatre, reviewed

The Motive and the Cue breaches the inviolable sanctity of the rehearsal room. The play, set in New York in 1964, follows John Gielgud’s efforts to direct the world’s biggest film star, Richard Burton, in Shakespeare’s most demanding play, Hamlet. A member of Gielgud’s company, Richard L. Sterne, recorded the process and his notes form the basis of Sam Mendes’s riveting production. The show is a must for anyone who works in the theatre or wants to. Directors, in particular, will relish the glimpse it offers into Gielgud’s approach to a uniquely demanding text and to a wayward superstar who was free to accept or to challenge the notes given during rehearsals.

Mark Gatiss wisely avoids reproducing Gielgud’s famous fluting voice and instead he gives us the spirit of the man – his donnish, poetic melancholy and his bashful, squinty-eyed fortitude. After each rehearsal he retreats, monk-like, to a bare hotel room where he confers with earnest young actors who seek his advice. They almost genuflect to him. Burton, by contrast, sprints off to a luxury suite where he carouses with Elizabeth Taylor and the Manhattan in-crowd. Bored, jealous and distracted, Taylor amuses herself by casually tormenting Burton. She threatens to start affairs with male models and she scolds him for wasting time on Gielgud’s production when he might launch a fresh show in London with herself as co-star. He ignores her casual cruelties and she responds by increasing their ferocity. These lovers rely on a shared relish for destructiveness to keep their romance alive. Why? They’ve conquered the world and their triumph has left them hollow, restless and dissatisfied. These are beautiful pen-portraits by writer Jack Thorne.

Designer Es Devlin uses simple but emphatically sumptuous effects.