Alan Bennett’s dramedy The Habit of Art, opened at London’s National Theatre in 2009, a follow-up to The History Boys, which had achieved international fame, despite the initial suspicion that it was “too English” to travel.
The “too English” stigma isn’t heard as often these days as it used to be, but it might have to be invoked for this Bennett opus. It’s a fine offering for American audiences knowledgeable about the works of W. H. Auden and Benjamin Britten, both of whom figure hugely in Bennett’s metatheatrical plot. It could become a new favorite for patrons who immediately twig, as the Brits say, to mentions of “Larry” (Laurence Olivier) and “John G.” (John Gielgud). It qualifies as a delight for patrons who quickly recognize the phrase “to spend a penny.”
The setting (Adrian Linford, the set designer) is a theater rehearsal room where four actors are rehearsing a play called Caliban’s Day (a spin on William Shakespeare’s The Tempest) with the playwright in frustrated attendance. The five are presided over by a onetime actress, now the company stage manager, and her assistant.
One of the actors, Fitz (Matthew Kelly, and what a magisterial performance he gives) has taken on the Auden role. Actor Henry (Stephen Boxer), is playing Britten (and doing quite well, including miming plunking an upstage upright). Donald (John Wark), as Humphrey Carpenter, is nervous about getting a strong hold on his part as the real-life BBC interviewer and as an eventual biographer of both Auden and Britten. Lastly, there’s Tim (Benjamin Chandler) appearing as Stuart, a rent boy happy to indulge on either side of fellatio but hoping his current career is temporary. Neil (Robert Mountford) is the playwright, Kay (Veronica Roberts) is the stage manager and George (Jessica Dennis) her assistant. All on hand are super.
During much of The Habit of Art – the title echoing Edmund Wilson’s motto that “a writer writes” — the actors rehearse the play, which revolves around a fictional meeting between Auden and Britton. Onetime cordial collaborators, they haven’t seen one another in 30 years and aren’t at ease.
When Britten drops in, he’s interrupting Auden’s dealings with interviewer Carpenter. He’s further delaying Auden’s interlude with obliging rent boy Stuart. The visit has to do with the composer’s seeking Auden’s advice on a proposed opera adaptation of Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice. Auden – whose father-in-law was Mann – insists that he will provide the libretto. He’s that strapped for work.
When undertaking the Caliban’s Day run-through, the four actors do a good job of what production-veteran Bennett surely has observed actors regularly doing. The herding-actors duties the stage manager fulfills certainly is typical. Bennett is likely even having a joke on himself as a playwright unnerved by watching a cast take liberties with his sacred script.
In other words, plenty goes on throughout this play-within-a-play, As Bennett remains one of the wittiest – and just as often broad – comedy writers in England, much of what he has penned is hilarious – or is hilarious to audience members who, for instance, get Britten’s frequent reference to Wystan, Auden’s uncommon (stateside, at least) first name.
Among Bennett’s casually tossed-off comical comments, there’s one about the homosexual Auden’s having married Mann’s daughter Erika and thereby demonstrating that arranged citizenship knot-tying is a worthy contribution for “a bugger.” Auden’s regular pursuit of innumerable boys is recalled more than once in the proceedings.
But overarching the hilarity, what is occurring through the two trim acts? Bennett has serious issues in mind, perhaps the foremost being the place and importance of distinguished men, such as Auden and Britten, in contrast to the ordinary man or woman in the street – as contrasted here, that is, to the likes of Stuart, a rent boy making do as well as he knows how. Bennett’s also contrasting these figures to actors merely trying to get the job done well. He underlines the great-man-common-man point by playwright Neil’s deliberately focusing Caliban’s Day not on Prospero of The Tempest but on the drama’s savage.
Moreover, though the Audens and Brittens of the world are celebrated, Bennett wants to say that they, too, share the problems of the common man. In the play-within-a-play Auden’s having no new work gnaws at him. He regards it as a function of aging. Concomitantly, Fitz is worried about his trouble learning lines, another symptom of aging and impending death. Fear abounds among all of them, except for efficient Kay. Well, even she is no longer the actor she had been and has had to find a second theater-related slot.
With so much going on in The Habit of Art, it feels as if Bennett in his serio-comic ruminating doesn’t quite blend the profuse ingredients. His getting at so much in the intricately layered script occasionally gives the impression that too much is transpiring for clarity. Also, there are moments when the switching from Neil’s script to the actors airing their own concerns is confusing for spectators, even if only momentary.
This revival is directed with great efficiency and great appreciation of the humor by Philip Franks for the Original Theatre. Because Bennett placed it very specifically in London’s National Theatre, Franks has revised it – with Bennett’s approval – for a generalized theater locus. He may have been thinking as well of a smaller budget, which would account for his excising six of Bennett’s 13 characters. Nonetheless, Bennett’s gift for hilarity, for ribaldry within gravitas, remains.
Habit of Art opened May 5, 2023, at 59E59 and runs through May 28. Tickets and information: 59e59.org
