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Available onlineJuliet Stevenson, Linda Bassett and others bring to life a fantasy dinner party thrown as the Nazis overrun France
All does not go smoothly at Steven Carl McCasland’s fantasy dinner party, a gathering of long-dead women of letters. The party, at which food is never served but plenty of scotch is sloshed around, takes place in June 1940, on the night that France surrenders to Hitler’s forces. We are inside the French Alpine home of the lesbian couple Gertrude Stein and Alice B Toklas, whose formidable, bristling guests include Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Parker and Agatha Christie. No one seems to like anybody else much and they bitch, squabble, throw drinks on each other and jostle for attention.
This high concept play could easily have turned into an emotionally arid parlour game, but McCasland’s writing grants these women sensibilities beyond their literary reputations. There are captivating performances from its glittery cast who have come together to raise money for Women for Refugee Women. They enter their characters fully, despite the bounds of this online rehearsed reading. Directed by Hannah Chissick, they appear or disappear in virtual boxes as they enter or leave the room, and we see little more than their faces, along with occasional stage directions visible on the screen. Continue reading...