THE MOTIVE AND THE CUE – Theatre Review

There are two types of people in this world: those who are in love with the English language and those who are not. In an age when variations on repetitive actions bewitch viewers’ senses on social media platforms, admirers of the very sound of English are often distinguished by a lack of pigment in their follicles. And so it was on my recent trip to the National Theatre in London. Granted, I did enjoy a matinee performance.

In 2023, language is merely text that covers for the unfortunate circumstance of not having coherent enough video to tell a complete story. We are becoming a literal society, in which a new generation of speakers see little need for double entendres and metaphors. Yet, the tell-tale sign of one’s affair with English remains a love of Shakespeare. And the greatest Shakespeare play of them all? Hamlet.

During the mid-20th Century, when theatre actors were considered almost as glamorous as the movie stars of the age, such performers ached to be famous, and the film stars longed for the respected title of artist. In The Motive and The Cue, a new play by Jack Thorne, directed by Sam Mendes, the professional jealousies and insecurities of Sir John Gielgud and Richard Burton are revealed through the intimate sparring between the rough-and-ready man’s man, Dick Burton, as played by Johnny Flynn, and the aging theatre luvvie, Sir John, played by Mark Gatiss. Burton struggles to connect with a prince with whom he ironically shares much in regard to familial estrangement, while Gielgud finds it difficult to reconcile himself to the fact that his career peaked in his twenties. Now the knight seems destined only to help other men become great at playing the role for which he set the gold standard. Will he, can he let go of his stranglehold on Uncle Will’s prose in order to allow Burton to make this Hamlet his own?

Both Flynn and Gatiss channel the larger-than-life men they play to amazing effect. Get the hair and the voice right, and I will suspend all of my own disbelief. The intonations and affectations are nothing less than perfect. The highs and lows of Flynn’s Welsh accent are sublime, and if one were to close one’s eyes, it would be easy to think Gielgud had been resurrected when listening to Gatiss spin a witty web of silk. When the two men duel, their sharp compliments evoke laughter and no tiny amount of awe. It is easy to detect the distant relationship of a father and son who love each other, but also find the other tedious.

Tuppence Middleton, as Elizabeth Taylor, is the brash no-mans land for the two geniuses. She and Flynn together portray a raw sexual chemistry we demand from celebrity couples, and Middleton convinces us all she has the same ability that Taylor had to quiet the irascible men in her life by simply commanding they cut the crap. Is she the beguiling Cleopatra? Maybe not quite. But then it is doubtful the screen goddess herself ever was entirely mesmerising behind the closed doors to which we the audience are become privy… which is the point.

As for the supporting cast, whom the playwright has designated the moral conscience of Burton, and to a lesser extent, Gielgud, there are some nice moments. Allan Corduner as Hume Cronyn, the American actor many will know from the 1980s movie, Cocoon, provides comic relief when he repeatedly reminds his castmates of the brilliance of wife Jessica Tandy. Janie Dee, as Eileen Herlie, delivers the most powerful rebuke of the play, after Burton directs his paraphrase of Mark Antony’s famed address, ‘Friends, Romans, Cunts’, at her. Once again, the tension is broken when Corduner’s Cronyn chimes in with mock disgust over being called ‘Roman’. And [Larry] Olivier is mentioned more than enough times for one to imagine he is merely waiting in the wings for a more dramatic entrance.

But, overall, the supporting players come across as roles the playwright deemed unfortunately necessary because he couldn’t figure out how to tell the story with just three actors. Every moment that Flynn, Gatiss, and Middleton are not speaking, we are waiting for them to do so. There is a lesson there, to be sure. Never surround yourself with living legends. Even if they are the ones making the martini, you are only present to serve their egos.

After sharing an epiphany about fathers and sons, the bond that eluded director and star for the duration of the entire rehearsal process is finally forged. Was failure ever really an option? The fact the Burton/Gielgud production set the record for the longest run of Hamlet in Broadway history is a testament to working through artistic differences.

The Motive and the Cue run at the Lyttelton Theatre comes to an end 15 July 2023. Expect a transfer to the West End.