While researching his book, The Europeans, Orlando Figes fell for the famous writers that populated his expansive work on 19th-century Europe. Turgenev was at the heart of The Europeans, but Flaubert is the focus of Figes’ very first play. With the great French writer’s life and money draining away, Turgenev, Zola and George Sand run increasingly desperate circles round their stubbornly romantic (and oyster-loving) friend, doomed to die for his art. It’s a sort of dream dinner party setup – only a lot of it is true.
Figes is known for the depth and vibrancy of his research, and those trademark strengths shine through in Philip Wilson’s measured production. As the four writers discuss life, love and literature, fascinating details emerge. We hear about the famous actor Sarah Bernhardt’s book, In the Clouds, narrated by a chair in a giant hot air balloon. As Flaubert’s friends burst into his modest apartment in Rouen, we discover the great writer lived seven floors up. And when Turgenev and Zola mournfully discuss Flaubert’s achingly inevitable funeral, they laugh as they remember the coffin hovering above the ground – too big to fit in the hole below.
Fizzing facts like these breathe life into what is otherwise a fairly dramatically stagnant piece. Figes based a lot of the dialogue on original letters and it often sounds just that little bit over-composed and contained. Big ideas are discussed in earnest but they don’t bring us any closer to the characters, all cleverly reflected in Isabella Van Braeckel’s mirror-lined and Manet-inspired set.
Bob Barrett’s Flaubert wears tatty but flamboyant clothes, the warm but quick-tempered eccentric uncle of the gang. Giles Taylor’s Turgenev is all sophistication and serene wisdom and Norma Atallah’s George Sand is pleasingly no-nonsense, if not a little thinly drawn. Flaubert’s painter niece Caroline Commanville (Rosalind Lailey) is intriguing but she’s only on the edges of this play. It’s down to young upstart Zola, played by a restless and sharp-edged Peter Hannah, to fire things up. Zola’s passionate defence of his pragmatic approach to writing – his need for money as well as legacy – is one of the few times the neatly crafted conversations crack around the edges and start to feel messy, spontaneous and real.
• The Oyster Problem is at the Jermyn Street theatre, London, until 4 March.
