CLASH of the TITANS
Why The Motive and the Cue has taken theatreland by storm, with a host of big names involved
“The Motive and the Cue” is a tribute to the art of theatre and the talents behind its allure. Playwright Jack Thorne crafts a narrative centered on the iconic 1964 Broadway production of Hamlet, starring the luminous Welsh actor Richard Burton. At the zenith of his fame, partly due to his high-profile marriage to Elizabeth Taylor had made the front pages around the world.
The production director was Sir John Gielgud, another theatrical great, once the most celebrated Hamlet of his day, but out of favour and out of fashion. The two men – one longing to show he was a serious actor and one hoping to find a new wave of success – clashed about everything, with Taylor watching from the wings like a wise angel. But out of their arguments, faithfully recorded by two other actors who sensed they were living through history, came a production that set the record for performances of Shakespeare on Broadway.
From this story, Thorne and director Sam Mendes have fashioned a play that has moved rapidly from the stage of the National Theatre, where it opened in April last year, to the Noel Coward Theatre in the West End, where it is drawing huge and appreciative audiences for a limited run that ends on 23 March. Its remarkable success is based on its themes extending far beyond its ostensible subject. As Mark Gatiss, who is playing Gielgud, said in a recent interview: “It’s a tribute to the play that it has managed to appeal to audiences who aren’t obsessed with theatrical history, as well as those who are.
What they get, I guess, is these two titanic figures having a battle of wills and then finding this moment when they come together. It’s very moving.” It certainly is. It’s also funny and revealing, thanks to performances by Gatiss, Johnny Flynn, who plays Burton, and Tuppence Middleton as Taylor, who really get under their characters’ skins.
With Mendes’ sweeping, cinematic direction and a design by Es Devlin that moves the action from monochrome rehearsal rooms to the bright lights of sophisticated New York, the play unfolds like a beautifully fashioned sequence of boxes. As Burton and Gielgud battle with their demons, Thorne, Mendes, and the actors offer an insight into the theatre itself – how it uses artifice to reveal the deepest truths about human nature. It’s an astonishing night out.
