That Face

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Having given up school to look after her, Henry is protective but hardly more than a child in many ways himself and completely unable to handle a self-loathing woman who has already spent time in an asylum. That was really fun. I try to take things like that when they come – it’s nice to just keep learning. Polly Stenham is so famous for writing her debut play aged 19, that it sometimes feels like it’s become subliminally accepted that her youth was the reason ‘That Face’ was so successful. Was its West End-storming success purely industry excitement at her youth?

Lyndsay Duncan turns in an exceptionally convincing performance as the self-centred alcoholic, Martha, who has actually failed to grow up and uses almost childish ploys to get her own way. Duncan exposes a mother who has almost lost every ounce of maternal instinct and obligation, though she eventually finds some semblance of redemption.All hope rests with Mia, a girl who might well return to school, excel in her A-levels and go on to become a professional playwright, possibly even before she leaves university. Although 'That Face' is sharply focused and intense, I wonder if the basic concept is really all that new. It's hard not to recollect the mother-daughter relationship in the hit TV comedy 'Absolutely Fabulous' where a wayward mother finds her studious and 'normal' daughter almost impossible to comprehend. I'm not saying that the ideas are identical by any means, but there are similarities. However, in spite of its humour, 'That Face' presents a much more serious and penetrating examination of parent-child relationships. In 2013 her third play No Quarter was staged at the Royal Court, directed by Jeremy Herrin and starring Tom Sturridge. The company also included Taron Egerton in his first year after studying at RADA. [10] [11] While this might seem outlandish, Mia (played by Cassie from Skins, Hannah Murray) faces a home life that is almost worse. Martha is somewhere beyond merely having a drink problem and has created an unhealthy relationship with young Henry, flirting with incest.

Henry. So I can go and know you’re safe. So I can look Dad in the eye when he comes. So I can know that I helped you somehow. Please. This one thing. ( Urgently.) I don’t want you to get sectioned. I won’t be able to visit you. It’ll be like before, remember? I don’t know where they’ll take you. I don’t know if they’ll let you out. Stenham's debut play That Face premiered at the Royal Court Theatre [1] in London in April 2007. It was directed by Jeremy Herrin and starred Lindsay Duncan as the alcoholic mother Martha and Matt Smith as her son Henry. Stenham won the Evening Standard 's 2007 Charles Wintour Award, [2] the Critics' Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright [3] and the 2007 Theatrical Management Association Award for Best New Play. [4] The reason That Face is written in a “Realistic” fashion is that the play focuses on things that happen in the real world. In the real world, families deal with divorces all the time and the aftermath that comes with the divorce. Children are usually the ones that tend to suffer the most, and this play showcases the hardships that the children are dealing with, due to their family being broken. Realism is when the playwright is wanting to focus on human behavior and give the audience in a sense a reflection of what they may experience in their respective lives. For example, at the beginning of the play, we see a rebellious teenager, Mia, getting into trouble at her school for drugging a classmate of hers. Now, not everyone will be able to relate exactly to this situation. However, they might be able to relate to the rebellious stage of teenagers, and for them to get into trouble at school. Throughout the play, there are many examples of human behavior that many people relate too. One reviewer named Lucy Avery pointed out how people can see themselves in the play. “However,Stenham also says that she felt the audience at the Royal Court had not seen themselves on the stage in this way -a reminder to us all thatif you get the right audience in front of a story that directly speaks to them, you’ve got the chance at a very successful play.” (Avery 2015). Polly Stenham’s blazing debut play exposes the secret lives of the rich with anarchic humour. That Face won the Evening Standard Charles Wintour Award, the TMA Best New Play Award, and the Critics’ Circle Award. This is its first major London revival. Writer Polly Stenham was just 19 when she wrote this, her first play. Having had it's premiere at the Royal Court and garnered a number of awards, it's now moved up to the West End. It's success is well-deserved because there's a freshness in the writing and the humour as well as the plot.Billen, Andrew. “Truly a Middle-Class Act.” America’s Current Affairs & Politics Magazine, www.newstatesman.com/theatre/2008/05/mia-henry-school-amplifies. That Face has much Freudian imagery that is used to express desire as well as the fears and anxieties the characters all face. One of these images is the use of the word “soldier” that Martha calls Henry. This image of a soldier keeps being repeated throughout the play. I think that Martha is using this phrase towards Henry because he has been there for her when her husband left them and wasn’t there for her when she needed someone. She has in a sense idolized Henry in being her protector and hero. This admiration also leads to her dark desire of having sexual tension for her son. For example, Lindsay Duncan and Matt Smith once again present unforgettable performances, while Catherine Steadman reprises her witty and incredibly assured cameo from first time around. Hannah Murray, who has been drafted in to add glamour to the West End production is not yet a great stage presence, but since she's only 18, has a lot of time to develop.

By the end, there can be little optimism for a family that has one member about to be sectioned, another who is apparently heading the same way and a third who will return to his comfortable life halfway across the world. At times Mia, played by Felicity Jones, is so well grounded that she seems too good to be true. As Catherine Steadman's Izzy panics over her comatose victim, Mia is totally calm. Later, when family issues boil over, the 16/17 year-old is almost always the calm observer. In my memory, Stenham’s writing has an exhilarating fierceness, and her text rings with addiction, abuse and aggravation. On this occasion, I thought it is also a bit too explicit and too explanatory. On the plus side, she is equally sympathetic to both her older and younger characters, and her portrait of mother Martha is emotionally powerful, emphasising her chronic neediness and deep vulnerability. Like her image in a distorting mirror, Henry is out of his depth, trying to help but unable to satisfy his mother’s deepest longings, while the underwritten Hugh is fatally distant. Mia, unsurprisingly, is a bit lost, having been given little parental guidance. Yes, a damaged rich older generation hands down misery to its children. Polly Stenham's strength is in creating convincing characters, more immoral than amoral, and then putting authentic dialogue into their mouths. It has to be said, that her stage alter ego, Mia, gets a relatively easy ride compared to everybody else on show and even at her worst tends to be seen through rose-tinted glasses.When it comes to dialogue in plays that are representative of Realism, it’s usually very boring and dull and doesn’t seem to create much interest in conflict. However, this type of dialogue is good for revealing what the character is about. For example, the way Martha speaks within the text lets us know how mentally unstable she is. She speaks with a childlike state of mind. She also has moments where she speaks complete nonsense, which helps us see how bad her addiction has caused her to dwindle into a dark hole. The dialogue in this play also does a good job of depicting conversations we may hear in an everyday situation, but also shows the struggles that families can face. We do see some Freudian imagery being used with the dialogue, which ties into the Psychological Realism, and Pinteresque. This paper will go further into depth about those images that are depicted within the text No booking fees.Prices increase based on demand. Book early to secure your seats at the best prices. Don't give me that, that...expression. I know you don't get on, but please be nice to her, or if you can't do that, just don't be anything. OK? Scene 5 - "You made your choice to stay Henry and I made mine to leave, it's not my fault she's worse" Sent home while her school decide her fate, Mia has to face her Mother and her father is called from overseas to sort out the mess. In the midst of all of this, Henry is torn between looking after his mother and his own need for self-development.

NICHOLAS DE JONGH for THE EVENING STANDARD says, "Powerful, expressionistic production." MICHAEL BILLINGTON for THE GUARDIAN says, "Polly Stenham...has a quality of emotional desperation one more often associates with mature American dramatists." CHARLES SPENCER for THE DAILY TELEGRAPH says, "There is so much vigour in the writing, so much passion in the playing, that one leaves the theatre feeling strangely exhilarated." BENEDICT NIGHTINGALE for THE TIMES says, " That Face has its prolix and its overstated moments, but it impressed everyone when it launched Stenham's career at the Royal Court's Theatre Upstairs last year."I have a complicated relationship with that. I love clothes, and I’m genuinely interested. I remember I did a shoot for The Sunday Times a while ago for Hotel, and there was a moment when I was in a dress, and I was on the roof of the National and someone was throwing pretend bits of my script at me, so it looked like they were flying around me. And in my head I was like, ‘You’re such a twat.’ Powered by family dysfunction … Zoe Boyle, Joshua James, Taron Egerton and Tom Sturridge in Stenham’s No Quarter in 2013. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian Now, over a year on, the play hits the West End in a cool, stylish production with the same underlying design principle but an ethic that could hardly be more different. The story, though, is very much the same, reeking of autobiography with well-delineated characters clearly drawn directly from life.