Amy's View

David Hare writes such good dialogue that he virtually dares his detractors not to appreciate his mostly disappointingly crafted plays. Amy's View is a case in point: annoyingly obvious in the point of view of its supposedly two-sided debates and typically depressing in its story of decline -- decline of the theater, decline of the economy, decline of the arts and appreciation of art, decline of the family, and, of course, decline of the British Empire. But it plays well and, despite having four acts, never tires.

The central drama is the conflict between a controlling mother and her willful daughter. Esme is a successful English actress whom we first meet in 1979 when London's West End is no longer providing steady employment for traditional actresses, especially aging ones. Fairly well-off, despite her impracticality, Esme regularly takes taxis from her theater in London to suburban Pangbourne where she lives in an elegant house filled with paintings by her deceased husband and supports her daughter and mother-in-law. Her daughter Amy is a young publisher involved with an egotist, Dominic, a minor critic and would-be director. In an effort to drive him away, Esme blurts out what Amy swore her to secrecy about -- that she is pregnant by Dominic, who has already dumped one young woman whom he got pregnant.

In Act 2 we learn that Esme's nasty plan didn't work. Amy and Dominic are married, and he is very successful with a TV show that trashes artists (actually it shows a cartoon character dumping artworks down a toilet). We get some fairly eloquent attacks on old-fashioned, "irrelevant" stuff like theater and "high art" from Dominic and a virtual hissy-fit toward Esme, whose life, identity and hard-won values he has been trampling on; yet Dominic's angry because Esme won't show him any "respect." Amy sides with her husband and leaves with him and their two children. Meanwhile, Esme is doing demeaning TV commercials.
Next we see Esme trying unpersuasively to defend the "artistic integrity" of what she has to do playing a nurse in a TV soap opera. Then she admits to Amy that she owes more money than she could ever make because of her unwise investments, guided by a lumpish neighbor/financial advisor who now lives with her and is trying to become her husband. Amy admits that Dominic is being unfaithful to her but insists that Esme has never seen what she loves about the man (I assume because he never strips onstage). Esme's mother-in-law, sadly confused with Alzheimer's disease in the previous act, is an inert lump in this act and presumably dies before the final one. Finally, we see Esme in a London fringe theater where she has regained her equilibrium through her art, though she has lost all her possessions, home, and security. Amy was killed by David Hare during intermission. Dominic, remarried, is now a successful film director (still following only shallow trends) and comes to try to reconcile with Esme. He tells Esme that they must live up to the beliefs of the wife he has betrayed and virtually done in.

You see, Amy's "view" was that we must love unconditionally and then will find reward (though no one does in this play). Esme does not reject him but seems to regard him as a temporary annoyance.

Some London critics thought that last act to be very optimistic because it espoused Amy's yea-saying view and showed Esme "triumphing" through her art -- even though she's lost absolutely everything else in her life. That the despicable Dominic continues to do better and better is an irony I think of as an ingrown Hare.

Patricia Lewis is very fine in the obviously tailored lead role of Esme, and Jill Rittinger almost keeps up with her as Amy. Mark D'Annunzio is a believable Dominic, and makes that character as appealing as possible in Hare's very tilted script. Trish Ralph is amusing as mother-in-law Evelyn when still a feisty old lady caricature and rather touching as Evelyn deteriorates. And Morey Fazzi keeps the greasy investment-counselor/suitor Frank interestingly colorless and likable in contrast to what we hear about the character under that harmless surface. Director Barbara Biddy actually moves the play along fairly briskly, considering that it is mostly actionless talk, unfocused, and long.