Apologia

Director Jamie Lloyd used to be an almost permanent fixture at Trafalgar Studios, volleying out bloody, bold, brilliant reinventions of classic plays aimed squarely at a younger audience.

His revival of Alexi Kaye Campbell’s second play ‘Apologia’ feels like an incongrously middle aged return, with only a pinch of his usual stylistic pizzazz (a splash of blood and a few thrilling shards of rock playing out around the interval).

This revival boasts a bigger-name cast than the original 2009 Bush production, foremost Broadway heavyweight – and the onetime Rizzo from ‘Grease’ – Stockard Channing, as formidable art historian Kristin, who is hosting a dinner party (possibly the most overused set-up for a play ever). Invited are her two sons Peter and Simon (both Joseph Millson – strangely ungimmicky), and their partners: Trudi (Laura Carmichael), an incandescently annoying American Christian; and Claire {Freema Agyeman], a smart but vulgar soap star – plus Hugh (Desmond Barrit), Kristin’s gay best friend, who makes gay best friend style wisecracks the from the sides.

Being a play set at a dinner party they all end up screaming at each other, as simmering resentments come to a head thanks to Kristin’s new memoir, which fails to make any mention of either of her sons.

‘Apologia’ attempts to tie Kristin’s apparent failings as a parent – and indeed, human being – to her unwavering belief in her fiercely feminist '60s ideas, which she's simply unable to set aside. Something about it just doesn’t hit home though: Channing’s performance is full of pain and intelligence and she delivers a fierce, alluring speech on the power of humanism to Trudi, but the writing doesn’t offer really offer enough to grab on – Kristin never really seems remotely as ideological as everyone suggests she is.

The contrivance of the dinner party set up is wearying (did I mention I'm bored of plays about dinner parties), and despite bright performances from the cast, the supporting characters are grating and cartoonish, especially the vacuous Trudi. ‘Apologia’ does, however, find a sweet spot in the otherworldly central scene win which Kristin is confronted by Simon, who tells her a quiet, devastating story from his childhood.

It’s a solid production from an director who always entertains, but it’s not much of an apologia for the play itself.