This interesting play comes with a fine pedigree. Florian Zeller's French plays have been successfully translated for the West End by Christopher Hampton before, most notably in the highly emotional and moving play about dementia, The Father which was nominated for several awards. Director Jonathan Kent is acclaimed for his work at the Almeida Theatre, National theatre and Chichester Festival Theatre and designer Anthony Ward has worked on successful shows in the West End, National Theatre and RSC. So expectations are very high when they come together in this latest pre West End production, The Height of the storm at the Theatre Royal in Bath.
When the curtain rises on the grand kitchen of a French countryside house with Andre staring out of the window in the half light as his daughter Anne enters we soon get a sense that not all is right in the family but the writing is perhaps too clever to follow easily over its eighty five minute running time. The time slips, character switches and changes in intensity seem deliberately written to confuse and mislead the audience. As you try to piece together what is happening, you risk missing the next switch and it creates an unsatisfactory disorientation. This may be intended as it explores the confusion of feelings of dementia and grief and the impact of loss. Hampton himself says in the programme that it was only when he saw Zeller's plays a second time did they become clear and he fails in the translation to solve this problem, I don't think it is enough to ask an audience to see something twice to understand the action.
