ajhlovestheatre

ROSE

by Martin Sherman

directed by Scott Le Crass

Ambassadors Theatre, London – until 18 June 2023

https://www.atgtickets.com/shows/rose/ambassadors-theatre/

So, apparently you can improve upon perfection. As Rose Rose might say, “who knew?!” When rising star director Scott Le Crass’s note-perfect production of Martin Sherman’s solo play that distils an entire generation of Jewish experience, from pogroms in a Ukrainian shtetl through the horrors of the Warsaw ghetto to the post-WW2 diaspora and a life of pragmatic plenty in America, transferred to London’s Park Theatre last year it was a total knockout. Who could imagine that a woman alone on a bench talking solidly for more than two hours could be so utterly spellbinding? Well, when that woman is Dame Maureen Lipman delivering career best work in a performance this extraordinary, it is required viewing.

She, and it, are back for a limited West End season that is on no account to be missed by anybody who couldn’t get tickets for the Park or Manchester runs (after an initial outing on screen during the pandemic, this Rose first bloomed on stage up at the Hope Mill in 2022). Anybody who went before and goes back may be struck by how much deeper and darker the production and performance now are. There’s more telling detail in the emotional highs and lows, more contrast between the dark and the light. Lipman’s Rose feels tougher somehow, even more of a pragmatic survivor. The cruelty she purports to have feels nearer to the surface, and it’s fascinating. If she’s now less ingratiating – you really feel you are encountering a woman who has looked into the yawning chasm of hell – she’s probably even more magnetic than she was before.

The late Olympia Dukakis premiered Rose at the National in 1999 before taking it to Broadway, and she was technically terrific but, not being Jewish, perhaps inevitably lacked the authenticity and intensity Lipman brings to the work. Sherman’s extended monologue is harrowing but rich, encompassing loss, hope, survival, the emotional and spiritual legacy handed down through generations, sexuality, mortality, making do….Lipman delves so deeply into the text, into this woman’s experience both personal and global, that it barely feels like acting at all.

When Rose Rose (her name is explained in the course of the play) first shuffles on in her comfy but elegant shabby-chic clothing with her immaculately coiffed hair, she seems pretty ordinary, like many other Miami Beach retirees, garrulous, warm, funny, maybe a little cranky. But Sherman’s script and Lipman’s charismatic performance go on to demonstrate that for the generation of Jews who escaped the anti-Semitic atrocities in twentieth century Europe, their lives were anything but “ordinary”, that their latter day security and contentment was hard won, their stories etched in blood, guilt and tragedy, and their survival bathed in humour ranging from ironic to gallows.

Maureen Lipman is astounding: her command of an audience, her ability to make the text sound as though she’s improvising on the spot, her lightning quick changes from cosy to cruel, chatty to profound, her timing, her authenticity, her technical precision… it all adds up to one of the greatest performances I’ve witnessed in a lifetime of theatregoing. There’s a dancer-like grace to the way her wide expressive hands whirr in front of her long, lovely face as she emphasises a point, and how her body sways as she recalls the motion of the boat that took her, all too briefly, to Palestine following the traumas of WW2 in Europe. Lipman’s face is unforgettable, mesmerising, equal parts granite and naked humanity as she vividly registers everything from memories of erotic awakening to unspeakable horror at the news of a child’s death, and blank shock at an unexpected reunion. Her accent is interesting, starting as American but becoming increasingly Mittel European as she delves back into her memories, some comforting, some hilarious, some rueful, many of them traumatic. It happens almost imperceptibly, but the detail takes the breath away.

Le Crass rightly places Lipman centre stage and matches her brilliance with a staging that is as stylish as it is unobtrusive. The pacing is exquisite and feels entirely organic, galvanising as Rose hits her stride in an especially impassioned flight of recall, sometimes slow and gentle as the text turns elegiac. Ultimately, everything Rose does, from mimicking Yiddish star Molly Picon in vintage movies to washing down her daily pills with ice cream (“I know, I know, I’m eating ice cream to take a pill for cholesterol. I’ll tell you something – who cares?”) to listening to her son berate her for sitting shiva for a child she never knew, becomes absolutely transfixing.

Jane Lalljee’s ever-changing lighting states complement the majesty of Sherman’s writing and Lipman’s acting without detracting from them, as does Julian Starr’s haunting sound score. Perhaps nothing is as powerful though as the silence in the room as the audience hangs on Rose’s every word.

This is a masterclass: Lipman is deeply moving; if she’s not as obviously funny this time around, that feels like a deliberate choice, and the opposing gain is more truth, an even more nuanced and unflinching appreciation for what this tricky, damaged, powerful woman has been through. Sherman takes us, and her, on a journey through twentieth century history that is at once a warning, a lesson and, almost miraculously, riveting entertainment. Lipman’s Rose is at once a mass of contradictions and a crucible of sheer humanity, and breathing the same air as her is an essential experience.