14 January 2016
Husbands and Sons
The National Theatre
Reviewed by Adam McCormack
Three hours of D H Lawrence (its tough up north Midlands) might not seem the uplifting start to the New Year that most of us need, but once again the Dorfman Theatre at the National has produced a brave and innovative play that never ceases to sustain our attention. Husbands and Sons has been created by the weaving together of 3 Lawrence plays; A Collier’s Friday Night, The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd and The Daughter-in-Law, adapted by Ben Power and directed by Marianne Elliott. This approach, rather than performing them as a trilogy, is inspired, not just because they are set in the same village, but also because they involve several similar themes that are touchingly explored by a very strong cast.
Once again the Dorfman, excels as a vehicle for a production in-the-round and the set is a village in its own right, with the 3 houses for each play clearly defined, and intersected by the grills and grime of the colliery. Those on the lower levels of the theatre change places with audience members opposite after the interval, but for the rest of the audience the action is more than adequately clear.
The husbands in the production are suitably brutish, but we are left in no doubts as to why they are driven to drink by their back-breaking trade and the constant threat of injury, death or loss of earnings through strike. The sons are a perfect counterpoint, one young and sensitive to the anger in his household, another escaping the environment through education (we are left thinking of Lawrence himself here) and the third descending into the same behavior as the older men, as he too becomes a husband. However, perhaps the real force of the production lies with the wives. They wait for their husbands to return, not knowing if they have been injured in the mine or are just in the pub, inevitably returning very drunk. They are strong women, having to cope with feeding a family with a varying income and constrained to stay at home to tend to their husbands and nuture their children. Anne-Marie Duff excels as Mrs Holroyd, in a role that is both physically and mentally demanding, left in a loveless marriage with a drunk while struggling to resist the attentions of an adoring electrician. Her loyalty may ultimately be to her young son rather than her husband but she is convincing as a wife and mother. As someone who grew up in the East Midlands I found the accents convincing and, while the use of dialect may make the plays a little less accessible for some, it does seem essential for the character of the production.
The UK’s last deep coal mine closed just last month and with it ended of a community life that once employed 1.2 million people (mining now employs only around 4,000). This play is an important reminder of the strength of those communities, the almost barbaric nature of their working lives and the intense stress that their families faced on a constant basis. It is also about the strength of family and the pivotal role of wives and mothers.
