The major message that Harold Brighouse’s attractively articulate Garside’s Career delivers would appear to be that nothing solves drastic setbacks more thoroughly than the love of a good woman.
But the play’s impossible-to-miss epiphany isn’t what Brighouse was initially aiming for. Born in England’s north and part of the burgeoning Manchester literary and artistic group called the Swan Club, he was after tracking the region’s political nature and the corruption too frequently infecting it.
On the surface of the walloping drama—which bowed in 1914 shortly before his most famous play, Hobson’s Choice–Brighouse’s target political message is in tandem with a jibe at the English class system, a subject habitually, compulsively indulged by UK playwrights.
[Read Michael Sommers’ ★★★☆☆ review here.]
In the midst of the high-pitched action is Peter Garside (Daniel Marconi), 23 and just qualifying as an engineer along with upper-class men he’s thrilled to have equaled, if not surpassed. Instantly, he’s also positioned as a hard-wired parenthesis between his overbearing mother, Mrs. Garside (Amelia White), and Margaret Shawcross (Madeline Seidman), to whom he’s engaged and who quickly becomes the embodiment of the above-mentioned good woman.
While Mrs. Garside, a prime example of domineering dramedy mothers-in-law, uninterruptedly denigrates Margaret—Margaret easily brushing off the verbal attacks—Peter’s prospects are suddenly unended. Local politicians Ned Applegarth (Paul Niebanck), Karl Marx Jones (Michael Schantz) and Dennis O’Callaghan (Eric Gratton) knock resoundingly on the Garside door and enter with a plot-triggering offer.
They represent the local Labor party and, now aware of Peter’s recent success, are convinced that the 23-year-old before them is the fresh young blood needed to represent their Midlandton district in Parliament.
It takes only a modicum of persuasion to turn young Peter’s head, even less to excite Mrs. Garside at the thought of having an MP in the house. It takes more to sway Margaret from her not-quite-explained uncertainty about Peter’s readiness for such premature advancement.
Nonetheless, off Peter goes with visions of grandeur in his head, especially after getting a taste of the upper-class Mottrams—grand Lady Mottram (Melissa Maxwell), nubile Gladys Mottram (Sara Haider), cavalier Freddie Mottram—when invited to dine by (never-seen) Mayor Jasper Mottram. What the impressionable fellow experiences is a tempting taste of how the richer half lives.
So much for the intriguing folderol of Brighouse’s first two acts (the four acts presented with one intermission), which is followed by a second-act opener in Peter’s unexpectedly lavish London digs, now occupied by an unexpectedly lavish Peter.
The still postponed engineer has now engineered himself a hefty income by working out ways to gratify his desire for decidedly un-Labor-like carryings-on, his questionable pastimes including a cat-and-mouse dalliance with cleverly evasive Gladys Mottram. He’s intricately worked out a schedule that features paying speaking engagements but excludes regular House of Parliament appearances.
He’s now sold on himself and his achievements, until, that is, his erstwhile Labor promoters barge in with complaints that have reached them of his absences. They’re there to demand either explanations or to obtain Peter’s agreement to step down. He almost untangles himself—while Gladys is hiding in another room—but is foiled when Mrs. Garside, living with Peter and disliking her absence from Midlandton, inadvertently spills the incriminating beans.
So much for Peter’s career as act four commences in his old home where he’s found destitute and distraught with only the previously abandoned Margaret again on hand.
But wait. Before proceeding to that turn of events, how about a rundown of the many strong Garside’s Career attributes? Brighouse’s dialogue is first-rate. Every character says what he or she has to say stylishly. No matter from what class they emanate, they speak trippingly, believably, and appealingly on the tongue.
Brighouse’s depiction of the period’s political climate and how the politicians deal with it is also involving, an ancillary facet the work’s reminder that politics and the corruption too frequently attached remain a timeless constant. The O’Callaghan, Jones, and Applegarth figures are particularly striking.
Moreover, under Matt Dickson’s direction, faultless and stylish as the script—the actors are equally faultless and stylish. Each inhabits whatever class precisely without minimizing the others. This has the effect of lending class to whichever class. A nifty trick, attributable not only to them but to, of course, Brighouse.
And a special citation to Marconi—who on the adaptable Christopher Swader and Justin Swader set and under Yiyan Li’s often judgmental lights—plays Peter Garside as a Roman candle set ablaze. Curly-headed, lithe, endlessly energetic, he holds rapt attention on himself. If Peter Garside’s career badly falters, Marconi sees to it that his leaps forward.
Bringing this review to Brighouse’s fourth—and seriously problematic—act. Peter is wallowing in the doldrums and Margaret arrives to rescue him from them. But having previously been unceremoniously dropped, the pressing question is: Why is she still hanging around? Yes, she still loves him and sees a future he doesn’t.
So what? And who is this Peter? He’s sorry for himself but completely unrepentant. Saying only, “I thought in London that I’d met the worst,” he doesn’t acknowledge his arrogant behavior is what rendered it the worst, a disgraceful ending he brought on himself. This leaves Margaret obliviously running on about their love, hers the love of a good but self-deluding woman.
And so presto-chango! Brighouse’s otherwise shrewd Garside’s Career ends up selling itself out. Too bad.
Garside’s Career opened February 20, 2025, at Theatre Row and runs through March 15. Tickets and information: minttheater.org
