‘The Habit of Art’
Playwright Alan Bennett follows his 2004 smash hit The History Boys with The Habit of Art, structurally a more complex piece using the play-within-a-play gambit to tell the story of a fictional meeting between two 20th century creative giants – poet W. H. Auden and composer Benjamin Britten. But the real subject of the piece is the creative process, the compulsion to create, the necessity to write which drives them.
Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, the current London production of The Habit of Art can be seen on NT Live – a live broadcast of a performance from the National Theatre (similar to the broadcasts the Metropolitan Opera has presented in the past few years) only at the Reading Gaslamp 15 Cinemas this Tuesday night at 7 p.m.
In Auden’s messy Christ Church flat, the slovenly larger-than-life poet (Richard Griffiths) is first seen peeing in the sink while he waits for a rent boy (Stephen Wight). But it’s future biographer Humphrey Carpenter (Adrian Scarborough) who shows up first, confused by Auden’s order to “take your clothes off.”
“But I’m with the BBC,” sputters Carpenter.
Meanwhile, up above, Benjamin Britten coaches young (male) singers.
But for most of the first act, the audience watches a theater troupe rehearsing a play called Caliban’s Day (inspired by an Auden poem) at the National. The director is elsewhere and two of the actors are off performing Chekhov, so the rehearsal is run by stage manager Kay (the fabulous Frances de la Tour), who occasionally steps in to read for a missing actor. The playwright skulks in the background.
The play-within-a-play structure allows Bennett to put explanatory material in dialogue format – for example, allowing actors to question the playwright, something they probably wouldn’t be allowed if the director were there.
But Bennett doesn’t stop there: he puts lines in the mouths of inanimate objects like tables, mirrors, even the creases on Auden’s face – and does it with his trademark wit and humor.
The second, stronger act recounts a fictional meeting between Auden and Britten. The two first met in 1935 when they both worked for Britain’s G.P.O. Film Unit, collaborating on plays and song cycles. In 1941, Auden wrote the libretto for Britten’s opera Paul Bunyan, a flop which broke the friendship (Britten and his life partner, tenor Peter Pears, were famous for dumping friends on the slightest pretext).
They were nothing alike, these two: Auden expansive, messy, out there with opinions and something of a bully; Britten buttoned-down, cautious, a model of restraint with a fear of self-revelation. The second-act meeting between them is a fascinating description of their separate artistic processes, not to mention their personalities.
“Real artists are not nice people,” Auden once wrote. “All their best feelings go into the work and life has the residue.”
There’s no residue on this stage. It’s a sterling cast: Griffiths and Jennings don’t resemble their characters, but they certainly play them well. De la Tour is a wonder as the stage manager, and fine performances are also turned in by Scarborough as Carpenter and Wight as the rent boy Stuart.
Hurry, Tuesday is the last NT Live broadcast of The Habit of Art, at the Reading Gaslamp 15 Cinemas. (Note: The title was not on the film board at the box office, nor outside the theatre (it’s in #10). The theatre is apparently still working out the kinks.)
Richard Griffiths as Fitz (Auden), Adrian Scarborough as Donald (Humphrey Carpenter and Alex Jennings as Henry (Benjamin Britten) in 'The Habit of Art'
