Haunted
Edna O'Brein
Haunted
When a captivating young woman enters the life of the quixotic Mr. Berry, his desperation to ensure her return causes him to start secretly giving away his wife's clothes in exchange for elocution lessons - but as the redoubtable Mrs Berry searches for an explantion to her fast-diminishing wardrobe, he soons finds that both his relationships are increasingly under threat in this world premiere of Edna O'Briens' new play.
2.7 out of 5 based on 3 reviews
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Omniscore:
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| Location |
Manchester |
| Venue |
Royal Exchange |
| Director |
Braham Murray |
| Cast |
Niall Buggy, Beth Cooke Brenda Blethyn |
| From |
May 2009 |
| Until |
June 2009 |
| Box Office |
0161-833 9833 |
| |
When a captivating young woman enters the life of the quixotic Mr. Berry, his desperation to ensure her return causes him to start secretly giving away his wife's clothes in exchange for elocution lessons - but as the redoubtable Mrs Berry searches for an explantion to her fast-diminishing wardrobe, he soons finds that both his relationships are increasingly under threat in this world premiere of Edna O'Briens' new play.
Reviews
The Guardian
Alfred Hickling
"O'Brien's latest work is a beguiling memory play of such subtle and elusive beauty, you feel it might disintegrate if you were to put your finger on it. But the action forms a delicate tissue of loss and regret as the bewitching Hazel causes Mr Berry to reflect on the wife he has lost and the child he never had."
20/05/2009
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The Stage
Natalie Anglesey
"Strong echoes of several stage, television and film dramas appear in this work, with the death of a real or imagined child reminiscent of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf combined with the flowering verbal and visual rose imagery of American Beauty. Laced with a surfeit of literary allusions and poetic quotations, it allows those of us who recognise them to preen with self-gratification, but eventually irritates when all three talk constantly in quotes."
20/05/2009
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The Times
Jeremy Kingston
"Forty years ago Edna O’Brien wrote a TV play about a marriage destroyed by the husband’s reckless fantasies. Something about it appealed to the admirable Brenda Blethyn, who asked O’Brien to adapt it for the stage. And here it is, providing Blethyn with a grand speech when the wife returns home unexpectedly to find her husband drooling over his virgin dolly bird. To add to the insult, he has dressed the girl in his wife’s wedding gown. Blethyn’s speech, outrage compounded with shock, is worth waiting for — and we’ve waited a long time — but it doesn’t rescue this wisp of a play from being ridiculous, unreal and unpleasant."
21/05/2009
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