The Pendulum

Alexander Fiske-Harrison’s new play at the Jermyn Street Theatre is well-made in every sense of the term. He presents a solidly written story of love and jealousy, twisted with social and racial bigotry and set in turn-of-the-century Austria. The plot is foreseeable enough, although I’m still not sure why the play is called The Pendulum, given that it’s dominated by a unidirectional drive towards an unavoidable ending.

The performance starts off rather mysteriously, with three masks dancing in a dangerous ménage-a-trois to music that is both eerie and evocative of the period. It reminded me of Arthur Schnitzler’s Dream Novell, and consequently of Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut in its more thrilling moments. Unfortunately, this tension and ambiguity was soon deflated and never reappeared on the scene.

The casts’ performance is focused on the exploration of these clashing passions. Alexander Fiske-Harrison’s von Leiben, a military man through and through and at ease with his own body and physical beauty, is effectively contrasted with Gareth Kennerley’s awkward intellectual Neurath. Unfortunately, the script does not allow them to explore their characters in greater depth, and thus the two leading men remain archetypal sketches. Sian Clifford somehow manages to penetrate deeper into the substance of being in her portrayal of Elena Suttner. Her energy does justice to her character’s independence, but she also manages to capture Elena’s underlying vulnerability. Clifford has a remarkably open face that lets the audience peer at the emotional doubts of a woman of Elena’s ilk would have had in the conservative Vienna of the 1900s. Even James Clarkson, who appears in the exceedingly minor role of von Leiben’s servant Otto Melk, manages in the few instances where he is not relegated to the labour of a stage hand to convey a warmth of feeling for his master that is truly powerful.

Overall, The Pendulum’s setting is interesting and problematic enough, but Fiske-Harrison does not succeed in translating this at an interpersonal, psychological, or emotional level. The issues remain on the level of historical discourse. In its better moments, the play reminded me of Visconti’s Senso. But where the Italian film is able to jolt its audience repeatedly by keeping its characters, their motivation, and their moral quality ambiguous, The Pendulum remains too simplistic and clear-cut in its depiction of Viennese society.