There are myriad plays about marriage. Far fewer about the wedding ceremony itself. But this month London theatregoers are invited to attend a couple of them. In the case of Sam Holcroft’s A Mirror, transferring from the Almeida to the Trafalgar theatre, we are quite literally among the guests. Beth Steel’s Till the Stars Come Down, at the Dorfman, makes us witnesses of working-class Sylvia’s wedding to her Polish groom: an event that reveals the rancour lurking beneath the surface of a boisterous family get-together. When one of the characters says “It wouldn’t be much of a wedding without a punch-up” it set me thinking how rarely, in the theatre, people get happily spliced. I have come up with five plays that suggest that the wedding day itself is something to be endured rather than enjoyed.
I am astonished that Arnold Wesker’s The Wedding Feast is virtually unknown. It premiered in Sweden in 1974, had British productions in Leeds and Birmingham in 1977 and 1980 – the latter with David Suchet – and has since disappeared. Based on a Dostoevsky short story, it is one of Wesker’s finest works and, not unlike Steel’s play, raises big issues about class and race. It’s the story of a rich Jewish shoe manufacturer who drops in uninvited on the wedding of one of his workers: a decision that leads to social embarrassment and personal humiliation. No one gains from the experience. The boss sees the limits of his capitalist paternalism, the wedding guests reveal their boozy boorishness and the married couple confront a joyless future.
