Chains of Dew

The Orange Tree’s latest rediscovery, Chains of Dew by Susan Glaspell, is a bit of a slow-burner. Actually, what I mean is that the first act is so ponderous I considered going home at half-time. But I’m extremely glad I didn’t, because at the heart of this rambling story lies a savage, compelling and urgent little parable about the price of personal freedom – the cost of “poetry and life and all that”.

Chains of Dew is two-and-a-bit hours of sugar coating an extremely bitter pill. The well-intentioned friends of frustrated poet Seymore Standish descend upon his conservative home town, determined to ruin his reputation, thereby freeing his literary inspiration. Kate Saxon’s hardworking company handles the ensuing complications with commitment and panache, supported by some fine individual performances.

Ruth Everett, as birth-control campaigner Nora Powers, is the heroine of a screwball comedy, who never quite realizes that she’s strayed into drawing-room tragedy. All bobbed hair and scarlet frock, she propels the show to its unsettling climax, but her bright-young-thing optimism can’t comprehend the sacrifices being demanded and accepted in a rapidly darkening final act. Nancy Crane and Pia de Keyser bring a sharp-eyed, brittle poise to the local ladies who know much more than they’re letting on. Helen Ryan, as the poet’s mother, is a sweet, wise old lady, who’s perhaps as “cunning” as the dolls she fashions. But as she absent-mindedly rips the stuffing out of her creations, her appealing commonsense turns to something more alarming.

It’s part of the subversive charm of the Orange Tree that some of its patrons are in the habit of sneaking a gentle doze during the latter stages of long plays. But all eyes were open as the deceptive security of Glaspell’s slow story-telling gives way to the “grim, realistic comedy” of the last act, and audible gasps of outrage punctuated the play’s unexpected, and uncompromising denouement.

Once again, Sam Walters has unearthed a monumentally unfashionable old play that packs a hefty moral punch, and asks questions about the cost of personal freedom that many a liberated (post)modern would baulk at. Go and see this play. Go and see almost anything at the Orange Tree. It’s intermittently the most radical theatre in London.