Intriguing theatre in Hampstead highlight: review

Jonathan Lovett reviews Visit from an Unknown Woman, which is on at Hampstead Theatre until Saturday, 27th July

A young woman in a black dress stands slightly swaying with her back to the audience as we enter. The plays begins, and without a word, she starts to investigate the elegant, minimalist flat which she’s been standing outside and which seems to have transfixed her. To the side, outside of the flat, are a great pile of wilted roses. She exits and is replaced by a slightly older woman in the same black dress who is excitedly chatting to the flat’s owner who is also to be her handsome companion for the night.

It’s an intriguing opening and for the first half of this 70-minute play we’re involved in a graceful guessing game of identity and dances in time.

Image by: Marc Brenner

Image by: Marc Brenner

Based on a Stefan Zweig short story adaptor Christopher Hampton (the author of numerous plays and screenplays including Dangerous Liaisons and Atonement) initially captivates with his imaginative take on this tale of life in Vienna in the early 1930s under the shadow of Nazism. A man and woman meet seemingly for the first time… she returns and tells him they actually met before… he can’t remember and then her story becomes more incredible… and who is the young girl who haunts the action?

The narrative of Zweig’s story is jumbled so the chronology is out of order and the satisfaction of working out the exact timeline is enjoyable. Unfortunately, however, it is too slight. The short running times does not help but I’ve seen wonderful 60-minute plays that are packed with incident and once the central revelation is apparent this feels under-nourished and under-powered. Indeed, in ambition it seems more suited to Hampstead’s smaller Downstairs space.

What I will remember is the direction by Chelsea Walker – the movement, lighting and music often has the quality of a dream – and the central performance by Natalie Simpson as the woman. Simpson effectively contrasts Walker’s direction with a wonderful naturalistic performance in which the audience is swept along by a wave of emotion as her past and reasons for being in this flat are revealed. She is compelling while, ultimately, the material is not.

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