LETTICE & LOVAGE
It begins amusingly enough. Lettice Douffet is an eccentric middle-aged lady whose limited means conflict with her unlimited imagination. The daughter of a Shakespearean actress whose cross-gender specialties were Falstaff and Richard III (she used the same pillow for her belly and her hump), Lettice shares with the Bard a theatrically vivid disrespect for historical facts. Employed to lead tours through a stately Tudor mansion, she embellishes the official history of Fustian House (“the dullest home in England”) with her own crowd-pleasing fantasies; this brings her the unwanted attention of her superior, a tough little terrier named Lotte Schoen, who promptly fires her.
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Also admirable are Alan Tagg’s wonderfully detailed sets–gloomy old Fustian House in the first act, and Lettice’s bric-a-brac-packed basement apartment in the last two–and the layered-for-lunacy costumes designer Frank Krenz has given Harris to wear. But the production as a whole is soggy and flat; though Michael Blakemore is credited as director, the show feels like it was blocked from Blakemore’s notes by a second assistant stage manager. Lacking energy and stylishness, Lettice & Lovage is a strange vehicle for a serious consideration of the death of elegance and tradition; with defenders like Shaffer manning the towers, the battle is lost.
