You would not call them a Golden Couple. Although Kyra Hollis (Carey Mulligan) and Tom Sergeant (Bill Nighy) once had a serious thing going, their age difference and Tom's marriage to Alice, plus disparities in their values and sensibilities, invariably steered them in different directions. Love gone awry is not unusual in the theater, but watching these two blue-chip actors pair off as Kyra and Tom is riveting in this revival of David Hare's 1995 drama, Skylight, at the Golden Theater.
Tom was a successful restaurateur, and 18-year old Kyra was his waitress and lover, living comfortably for six years with Tom and his unsuspecting wife and two children. When Tom's wife, Alice, discovered their affair, Kyra fled the scene. She moved to a downscale neighborhood and became a teacher.
Now three years later, on a freezing winter night, Tom's teenage son, Edward (Matthew Beard from “The Imitation Game”) appears suddenly on Kyra's doorstep, blaming her for abandoning his family. Alice had died a year earlier and he pleads for Kyra to help his depressed grieving father. Shortly after Edward leaves, Tom unexpectedly shows up, all internal electricity and as arrogant as ever. Now with his wife gone, who knows, maybe he and Kyra can rekindle their old flame.
The entire play takes place over one night in Kyra's shabby flat. Skylight is about love, life choices and one's responsibilities, but also its impact by the economic upheavals of 1990's England. Kyra has forged a new life. Her sensibilities include the disenfranchised. She does not care if her flat is run-down and so chilly that Tom does not even remove his topcoat. He blames her for leaving him and does not hold back his distaste for her threadbare lifestyle, "Kyra, what’s happening? Are you really living like this?"
In act one, as their relationship and back stories unravel, Kyra is peeling and slicing onions and cooking spaghetti sauce, sending a mouthwatering aroma throughout the theater. In his blame harangue, Tom even criticizes her about how to correctly prepare the food and is itchy to dash to the stove and take over the cooking himself. Nevertheless, he agrees to join her for dinner. Act one centers around their old affair and the remaining chemistry, ending with sending his chauffeur home and moving into the bedroom.
Act two is heightened by Hare's political polemic of unequal class differences. Mulligan (The Seagull) is contained as she prepares the meal, cool but snappy with the man who was once her mentor and lover. Nighy, who was seen in the film, “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” moves constantly with a razor-edged nervous energy. He had portrayed Tom in a 1997 London transfer of the original UK production and is fun to watch. Their interactions grow more combative, transmitting blame and criticisms. This is an impossible love affair, and they both know it. Kyra says, "I loved you more than anyone on earth. But I’ll never trust you, after what happened." Tom finally leaves. After Tom is gone, his son, Edward, returns, showing some of sharp energy of his father, but admitting he was rude to Kyra in his earlier visit. He brings her an elaborate breakfast, which she admitted she missed most of all after leaving the family.
Stephen Daldry (director of another play currently on Broadway, The Audience), keeps a transfixed focus on the characters and a fervent pace tracing the relationship of Kyra and Tom.
Bob Crowley's set defines the differences in Tom's and Kyra's lifestyles. The dilapidated flat with second-hand furniture almost feels as cold as it looks with lighting by Natasha Katz. Crowley puts Kyra in scruffy baggy clothes. Tom wears conservative business suit and topcoat.
Skylight is a compelling, often amusing, star-crossed love story, powered with political issues and showing the responsibilities that had to be faced.
