Writer: Magdalena Miecznicka
Director: Alice Hamilton
Does the world need another play about a rich man having an extramarital affair? There could be grounds for one more story if the playwright brought something new to the table but unfortunately, with the exception of a social-class divide, Magdalena Miecznicka’s new play is very old-fashioned.
John and Aga meet up one year and ten months after their affair has ended. John’s life hasn’t changed much in the interim. He still goes to dinner parties in Primrose Hill and still sends his children to private school where he watches their debating events. Aga’s life has changed, however. After discovering the affair, Aga’s husband left her and now she is struggling in a rented flat with two kids. She cleans hotel rooms for a living.
John is enthralled with her stories about the stuff people leave behind in the rooms she cleans. He constantly patronises her as if he is slumming the East End in Victorian London. He supposes that because she is poor, she is also uncomplicated and is as happy with her lot as he is with his. It’s hard to fully believe in John’s obliviousness to other people’s lives despite the current Tory Government’s total disregard for real life.
David Sturzaker never overplays John’s privilege, although Miecznicka’s deliberately poetic script does. He talks of stables and horses and six-bedroomed houses and leek carpaccio as if everyone enjoys these pleasures. Sturzaker never sounds posh enough to have such reprehensible attitudes.
Aga is a more interesting character, especially when her motives become clear for wanting to meet up with John after so long. Olivia Le Anderson’s Aga is cold and determined but her machinations seem outlandish. She inhabits the role of a blackmailer nicely, but would anyone fork out £750,000 to keep an illicit affair secret?
The essay in the programme would suggest that inequality rather than adultery is the focus of Nineteen Gardens. While the perennial battle between the Haves and the Have-Nots has only gotten worse in the last 20 years or so, since property has become unaffordable to most, this play only approaches the issue in the broadest strokes and it’s difficult to side with either team if Aga and John are their representatives.
Nineteen Gardens is not quite comedy or social commentary or thriller and the result is slightly dull. At one point John claims that between courses of his lavish meals in Primrose Hill, he sometimes remembers the taste of Aga’s skin. Miecznicka’s play, her first in the English language, is a little like John’s amuse-bouche. Nineteen Gardens is a palate cleanser for richer dishes ahead.
Runs until 9 December 2023
The Reviews Hub Score
Amuse-bouche
