The Breadwinner, Orange Tree Theatre - theatre review

There's much to enjoy in Auriol Smith's bracing production, as Orange Tree continues its season of revivals of plays about earning a wage
1/3
18 May 2013

Four casually obnoxious young people in 'Anyone for tennis?' mode saunter on at the start of The Breadwinner (1930). We fear - and quietly cheer - that this achingly arch foursome is not going to get the flats and tennis courts of its dreams. We're not sure how, but we suspect that W. Somerset Maugham has got a major reversal of fortune planned for them.

And so it proves, as the Orange Tree carries on its splendid work of joining the gaps in our theatrical knowledge through its intriguing season of revivals of plays about earning a wage. Charles Battle (Ian Targett), the stockbroker father of two of the aforementioned achingly arch, has a close shave with financial ruin, forcing him to reassess his view of wife, family and breadwinning. It's bracing stuff initially, but then gets rather stuck in a groove of its own repetitiveness. The last Orange Tree offering, The Man Who Pays the Piper, worried at similar themes with greater sophistication.

Still, there's much to enjoy in Auriol Smith's production, not least Cate Debenham-Taylor's indulged wife idly mulling on the appeal of widowhood and Sarah Schoenbeck as a wannabe flighty young thing.

Until May 18 (020 8940 3633, orangetreetheatre.co.uk)

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