Less Than Kind, the 1944 Terence Rattigan play, opened its American premiere on March 10, 2014 at Theater Three in Dallas, Texas. It could as easily have been titled “Hamlet Lite.” The play's title is borrowed from a line in Hamlet,and the plot is derived from that play, as well. However, the back story is actually more interesting than the play itself. While it was a hit in wartime England, the script has gotten waterlogged crossing the pond in 2014.
Less Than Kind is a comedy about wealthy Canadian industrialist/ English cabinet minister, Sir John Fletcher who has filed for divorce from his unfaithful wife, Diana (Jenna Anderson). He is living with a poor war widow, Olivia Brown (Lisa-Gabrielle Greene) in Fletcher's fashionable digs in London. Brown had sent her then-12-year-old son Michael to Canada for safety during the war years. Michael (Zak Reynolds), now almost 18 years old, returns unexpectedly to find his mother living in sin. The high-jinks begin and continue throughout the play. Michael has become indoctrinated as a Socialist and gets into frequent ideological clashes with Sir John.
Rattigan originally wrote the play for Gertrude Lawrence at her suggestion. When he presented her with the finished work, she had forgotten all about it and was seemingly occupied with other endeavors. Ultimately, Rattigan re-wrote the play for Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne and re-titled it “Love in Idleness.” The Lunts starred in London's West End premiere and toured England with much success. The play also assumed another iteration as “Oh, Mistress Mine.”
In 2011 Adrian Brown, Rattigan's lover for seven years, whom he met when they were students at Oxford, found a prompt script in his attic and dusted it off to re-emerge with its original title to open once again in London's West End in 2013. Despite the play's anachronistic referrals to long forgotten events of wartime London, or in fact, events never known at all by a preponderance of today's American audiences, Less Than Kind, as presented by Theater Three, is an enjoyable production. It is a case of excellent acting redeeming an outdated play.
Lisa-Gabrielle Greene is outstanding as the poor widow who has quickly adapted to living a life of luxury while simultaneously placing her motherly duties above that life as she leaves her lover, albeit temporarily, and moves with her son to shabby but affordable digs. Paul Taylor strikes all the right notes as he vacillates between the arrogant industrialist/cabinet member and the pleading, lovestruck suitor.
Zak Reynolds is quite believable as the angry, idealistic Socialist appalled at the idea that his mother plans to marry the enemy. He projects his youthful, idealistic attitude toward politics with high energy and zeal. In true Shakespearean fashion "all's well that ends well."
