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Gothic social realism is not a genre one sees that often. Sylvia Rayman’s 1951 debut – a full five years before John Osborne’s ‘Look Back in Anger’ – is almost Dickensian in flavour. She concocts a stark and uncompromising portrait of an exploited underclass, in this instance the stigmatised single mother, but gives it a sharp twist of noir.
Mrs Allistair runs a London boarding house for unmarried mothers. Her residents come from all classes and castes, but none has anywhere else to go. Landlords don’t want their sort – certainly not at rates they can afford. For a fee, she offers a bed and babysitting, while they go off to earn their rent. She provides another service too, though not to her tenants: supplying babies to couples seeking to adopt.
These women are helpless. One, Sal (Emma Reade-Davies), is mentally disabled; another, Veronica (Amy Comper), is a mother by rape. Mrs Allistair, a former nurse, keeps them all pinned down and in their place – even prim, posh newcomer Christine (Elisabeth Donnelly). Their earnings all go to their lifesaver landlord, so they can never better themselves. Upstairs, their children are malnourished. They need medical attention that never comes.
White Bear regular Jonathan Rigby has struck gold by dusting down Rayman’s forgotten drama, even if his production doesn’t quite give it the polish it merits. It’s a beautifully balanced piece for a strong all-female ensemble and Olivia Knight’s design – though light on squalor – catches the bleakness of the postwar, pre-welfare period.
However, for all the play’s empathy – and Rigby handles each woman’s individual story with all the delicacy they deserve – its major plot thrust becomes overly ominous. Sally Mortemore’s Mrs Allistair – her hair a backcombed bird’s nest - is too obvious a harridan, straight out of the ‘Scooby Doo’ school of villainy. She should be a saint corrupted by self-interest instead.