Empty
Bed Blues
* Premiere
by Stephen Lowe
Directed by Matt Aston
Lakeside Arts Centre / Lincoln Performing Arts Centre
Spring 2009
After the national success of his Brian Clough comedy- Old Big ‘Ead
in the Spirit of the Man, and the critically
acclaimed Smile, Stephen Lowe returns to local “hero” - DH Lawrence
- for a moving and passionate study of
the pains of love, of living, and of dying. In
1929, DH Lawrence and his wife visited two wealthy young Americans, hoping
they might finance an edition
of "Lady Chatterley's Lover". The quartet proves to be a potent,
unpredictable combination.
Penniless
and desperate to find a publisher for his “Lady Chatterley”,
Lawrence and Frieda turn to a legendary
couple of the American “lost generation”, the drug fuelled
poet and publisher Harry Crosby and his beautiful
sculptress wife, Caresse. Their passionate experiment in the total excess
of living collides with the Lawrence’s
more painful relationship revealing a major clash of culture, of class
and of sexual desire.
"Empty
Bed Blues" is a tragic-comic stage poem on life, death, and, above
else, the nature of love and betrayal.
It is based on the diaries of all four of the characters. |
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Whats
on Stage
It’s the Easter of 1929 and DH Lawrence is dying. Racked by consumption
and stony broke, he desperately
needs to find a publisher for his infamous “Lady Chatterley’s
Lover”. And while his illness means that his own
“cock fails to crow” he is obsessed by his secret knowledge
that his beloved wife Frieda is having a passionate
affair with their Italian gardener.
For
financial help he turns to Boston aristocracy in the form of playboy publisher
Harry Crosby and his wife
Caresse who live a live of drug-and-alcohol-fuelled excess just outside
Paris. But living the hedonistic lifestyle
is one thing – will the Crosbys find themselves able to give their
blessing to Lawrence’s sexually explicit novel?
Stephen
Lowe has based Empty Bed Blues on the diaries of the four protagonists
with Lawrence’s voice the
loudest, though never the clearest, of the characters. Tim Dantay is stunning
as the self-absorbed writer whose
prudish nature is at odds with the passion he puts down on paper. Socially
a million miles away from the
racehorse-owning Crosbys, his heart is still with the Nottinghamshire
miners - “true thoroughbreds who haul
black coal into the light of day”.
Sex
is the dominant theme of this wordy but powerful play, set around the
lake on the Crosbys’ estate, where
skinny-dipping ensures that there is plenty of naked flesh on view from
Tristan Tait’s appearance as Harry from
the (real) pool of water to the visually absorbing final scene when the
video-projected backdrop brings
surprises of its own.
However,
love is also central to the story as Clare Calbraith’s Caresse reveals
when she muses on the
nature of her open marriage and Marion Bailey, as Frieda, speaks of her
tender relationship with Lawrence
that transcends her physical affair with the gardener.
[Nick
Brunger]
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Reviews
Gate
D H Lawrence is a massively over-rated writer. Most of his ideas are not
just wrong: they’re a rag-bag of ill
thought-out prejudices that don’t stand critical scrutiny. And his
prose is often dreadful. In Stephen Lowe’s
latest play Lawrence strides about the stage preaching at us exactly as
he writes.
But
don’t allow any of this to put you off. The play is rich and rewarding
at many levels; and in production
terms it’s a visual delight, stunningly well acted by everyone.
Lowe
bases his action on real-life diaries. DHL and his wife Frieda are visiting
Harry and Caresse Crosby,
a couple of wealthy American aesthetes; they want Harry, a publisher,
to put up the money for Lady
Chatterley. Lawrence, racked with tuberculosis, has only months to live.
Sex
is the over-arching theme, of course, but the play is interwoven with
discussion of class, cultural values
and religion. It’s also paradoxical, both textually and in terms
of character; and it’s funny and tragic.
Tim
Dantay is outstanding as Lawrence. He captures the repression, the social
awkwardness and the chip
on the shoulder remarkably well. And so is Clare Calbraith as Caresse,
who despite her ridiculously open relationship with Harry, is as in need
of authentic love as the rest of us.
Marion
Bailey, who bears a striking resemblance to the real Frieda Lawrence,
never lets us forget Frieda’s
infidelity to her first husband and her children, and Tristan Tait (Harry)
achieves the Anglo accent of the
New England aristocrat splendidly.
There's
an ingenious set: woodland, cottage interior then woodland again, with
a real pool of water from
which
Harry makes his entrance stark naked in the first few seconds. Frieda
also takes a dip later on, and
so does Caresse. It’s symbolically significant that Lawrence is
the only one who doesn’t.
[Alan Geary]
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NG
Magazine
Nottingham’s Lakeside Arts Centre presents a fascinating portrait
of D. H. Lawrence written by the
Nottingham-based, Sneinton-born playwright Stephen Lowe. The play takes
as its inspiration from
a very specific period in Lawrence’s life, just after the completion
of his most infamous novel
Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
The novel and its illicit content had initially been refused by most publishers.
In the play, Lawrence and his
wife Frieda are looking for a last resort, so they travel to France to
visit American publishers Harry and
Caresse Crosby to convince them it is a novel ‘worthy’ of
Lawrence’s genius.
Empty Bed Blues depicts an impoverished Lawrence whose moods swing pendulum-like
between wry
humour and despair. Believing his book to be the necessary shock to induce
a sexual revolution, but
unable to convince others, the play is a meticulously detailed impression
of his artistic struggle.
Tim Dantay comes to life as the tortured artist but creates a deeply personal
version of this type.
A powerful presence on stage, he does credit to the contradictions of
Lawrence’s character and the
turbulent yet tender relationship with Frieda is convincing.
The emphasis on the autobiographical significance of Lady Chatterley is
an interesting one and the
interpretation of the most notorious of Lawrence’s novels and provides
the vital human element.
Lawrence and Frieda’s marriage is deliberately paralleled with the
liberality of the much younger
Crosby’s. Sexuality infuses the stage of Empty Bed Blues just like
the narrative of Lady Chatterley
and desire openly surrounds Lawrence himself.
However, the gap between Lawrence the writer and Lawrence the man is clear.
His fiction and its radically
candid and celebratory depiction of sexuality stands starkly at odds with
his views on his own life. The play
makes clear this contradiction between his passionate crusade against
the oppression of desire and his own
personal adherence to tradition. The play could certainly have benefited
from some ruthless editing to avoid
the brilliantly acted scenes of Lawrence’s irrepressible passion
becoming tired.
All in all though, Empty Bed Blues is an exciting, well acted and well
produced performance. And
the ingenious stage-design that incorporates a revolving set and exquisite
projections is definitely
well worth a look.
[Annie Cliffe] |
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Left
Lion
One weekend in 1929, D.H. Lawrence and his wife, Frieda, visited a wealthy
young American couple living
inParis. Lady Chatterley's Lover had been banned in Britain and the impoverished
Lawrence was seeking
funds to publish an American version, hoping to gain a wider readership
and to gain a much-needed income.
The poet Harry Crosby and his wife Caresse were typical of the Lost Generation
- living a Bohemian lifestyle
and consciously rebelling against social norms. Stephen Lowe's new play
gives an account of the encounter
between the two couples and throws light on the final months of Lawrence's
life.
At this point, Lawrence was ill with tuberculosis and had only a short
time to live. Aware of his own
imminent death he was trying to create his legacy through literature but
at the same time dealing with
a troubled relationship with his wife. The main theme of the play is the
contrast between the gloomy
Lawrence and the hedonistic Crosbys. They had each expected to find kindred
spirits in the other but
their forms of rebellion were very different. The Crosbys are surprised
to discover that Lawrence's
lifestyle
is conventional and find him reserved and morose. In contrast, Lawrence
finds the Crosbys'
hedonism shallow and meaningless and he seeks to make a breakthrough in
his literature rather than
in his life.
The Crosbys misunderstand Lady Chatterley as the work of an inhibited man
unable to break free from
convention and consider it an inferior work. Lawrence tries to explain the
real value of the work but in
doing so has to reveal the emotional pain caused by his writing and the
difficulties of his personal life,
causing much discomfort for his wife. He expresses his frustration at the
censorship of his work, believing
that it has the ability to change society and as we know, although it took
more than thirty years, his belief
was proved correct.
As well as a portrait of Lawrence's final years, this play is also a meditation
on the nature of rebellion and
is rich in symbolism. The cast of four are excellent and in particular Tim
Dantay plays Lawrence very well.
The set is mostly comprised of animated back projection, evoking both the
Crosbys' tropical garden,
complete with rippling lake and flying birds, and the stone walls and log
fire of the house, which is
extremely effective. Throw in Matt Aston's excellent directing and you have
a fascinating experience
that gives plenty of food for thought.
[Adrian Bhagat] |
