Review: In Praise of Love, Orange Tree Theatre

Thanks to the ever-ambitious Orange Tree Theatre and its exciting 2025 season, I can now say I’ve seen my favourite Terence Rattigan play. I may also have seen my favourite production of the year – and yes, I know we’re only halfway through.

Written late in Rattigan’s life and career, In Praise of Love sees the master of social mores go beyond the romantic themes his title suggests. Yes, it focuses on a long, complex marriage, but it also weaves together politics, literature, patriotism, parenthood, illness, war, identity, morality, mortality, and more. Good plays are, of course, layered and complex. Great plays, however, reveal the human condition without all that effort on show; a seemingly simple fleeting moment can reveal an ocean’s worth of depth.

Sebastian, the angry Marxist literary critic and patriarch at the heart of Rattigan’s story, would surely loathe my purple prose, just as he despises his son’s liberal politics, his American friend’s financial success as a novelist, and, most tellingly, the past and future of his Estonian refugee wife. As with all good drama, the small cast of characters spends much of the run time lying to each other. In lesser hands, the plot could feel contrived or even farcical. Here, the twists land and every truth is wholly earned.

It’s a funny play, too. How could it not be? Love and marriage, seen up close, are patently absurd. So is war. Horribly so. Set in 1973, the play reflects directly on the lingering terror of World War II. We learn how Estonia was devastated by Germany, and then, cruelly, by Russia, soon afterwards. Atrocities are described without flinching. And yet, the play asks us to question, or indeed mock, nationhood. What does it mean to be stateless? To be American? Or, more importantly to the home crowd, to be English?

You can be the finest English playwright of the 20th century, as I now honestly believe Rattigan might well be, but the success of one’s play still depends on the talents of others. A creative team needs to make all the right choices. It’s a critic’s job, regrettably, to occasionally point out missteps and failings. Here, I have nothing to report. Not one thing. Zilch. Nada. The cast is extraordinary. Dominic Rowan is spellbinding as Sebastian: lazy, arrogant, and profoundly broken. He miraculously, however, delivers many of the night’s warm laughs, even as he causes much of its devastation. Daniel Alberson, who gave an interview to Everything Theatre during rehearsals, takes a character that could easily become an expositional plot device — the American interloping friend — and, instead, gives us a tender, thoughtful, and generous outsider. Joe Edgar is a familiar angry son finding his way in life, but familiarity doesn’t make his youthful take on life and its disappointments any less impactful. And then there’s Claire Price, who, despite the show being an ensemble triumph, stands apart. As Lydia, Price is the beating heart of the evening. It’s her performance that moved me to tears more than once. The funny thing is, I’m not sure she was doing very much at the time. The weight of being a wife and mother is just there, present, and raw.

Direction from Amelia Sears is, like all great direction, imperceptible. No great concept. No themes writ large. Just the story, told well. Design from Peter Butler is exquisite. A play set in the 1970s comes with inherent style risks, but his cool, minimalist set and fashionable, yet understated costumes are precisely what Rattigan’s text demands.

Despite being wholly about the lies we tell, In Praise of Love ends on a clear note of hope, and, be honest, what else could you possibly want from a night at the theatre in this troubled world? 

Written by: Terence Rattigan
Directed by: Amelia Sears
Assistant Director: Rosie Tricks
Set & Costumes by: Peter Butler
Lighting Design by: Bethany Gupwell
Sound Design & Composition by: Elizabeth Purnell
Fight Director: Alex Payne

In Praise of Love plays at The Orange Tree Theatre until Saturday 5 July