The Divine Mrs S by April De Angelis. Hampstead Theatre, Eton Avenue, Swiss Cottage, London NW3 to 27 April 2024.

4✩✩✩✩ Review: William Russell.

“A sparkling performance from Rachael Stirling in a very funny play.”

Today Sarah Siddons would be a dame and a national treasure. Rachael Sterling gives a sparkling performance in this rumbustous account of life upon the wicked stage in the eighteenth century as Sarah, a member of the acting clan of Kemble, becomes a star celebrated most of all for her performance as Lady Macbeth. Actresses were then not exactly respectable, but Sarah created an image of her own, was painted by the likes of Gainsborough, was a devoted mother and wife although her husband and manager, William Siddons, was far from faithful, and in this version of her life gets a woman playwright to write a play for her which will provide the sort of role that Shakespeare gave men. She controlled her image, but not her roles and to some extent not her career, in a way that superstars, and she was certainly one, do today. The play is very funny and director Anna Mackmin keeps it speeding along briskly as Sarah falls out with her colleagues, battles with Bailie about the play she has written for her, with her faithless husband, because men still ruled their wives lives, goes on exhausting tours – she plays Hamlet, but in a dress, at one stage and her fencing match with Laertes is hilarious by far. There is a terrific Lez Brotherton set which combines the stage of the then Drury Lane – it was burnt down and the present one is not the theatre in which Sarah acted – and her dressing room where she collapses on a chaise longue from sheer exhaustion or confides in her devoted dresser. Maybe some of it is overdone – the men are all played to the hilt as grotesques – but Stirling provides a perfect centre to it all with a confident, glittering performance clearly relishing what she is required to do as much as does the audience. Sarah was the first great actress of the English stage and had lots to say about how roles should be played and also dealt with family life and being, as women were then, somebody’s chattel. There are arguably other ways of telling Siddons’ story but De Angelis has come up with one which should ensure Hampstead is full for the run.

Cast

Anushka Chakravarti – Faith.

Eva Feiler – Clara, Joanna Bailie, Galindo, Arthur.

Dominic Rowan – Kemble.

Sadie Shimmin –Mrs Laurent, Cowslip, Turnkey.

Gareth Snook – Boaden, Thomas Laurence, Percy Scraggs.

Rachael Stirling – Sarah Siddons.

Creatives

Director – Anna Mackmin.

Designer – Lez Brotherston.

Lighting Designer – Mark Henderson.

Composer & Sound Designer – Max Pappenheim

Fight Director – Mc_Combat (Maisie Carter).

Theatre, play 28 March 2024.

Photo Credit – Johan Persson.