Rutherford & Son review, St James Theatre

Trouble at mill

The celebrated director of Rutherford and Son, veteran polymath Jonathan Miller, describes the drama as 'resembling the best of Chekov'. There is certainly that same sense of claustrophobia, of people trapped and being extinguished by genteel poverty in a lifestyle they cannot sustain; but it's a lot grittier than Chekhov, and lacks the elegance. It's early twentieth century melodrama in which the comedy almost instantly gives way to a lot of ey-up-lad type Yorkshire folk angrily banging tables and shouting.

Doughty Barrie Rutter play John Rutherford, a man who lives and breathes his glassworks: a bullying patriarch as solid and unbreakable as his wares are not. The business is in trouble and his resentful, dependent, adult children have no interest in what's happening. There's Dick, the curate whose godliness turns his father choleric; John the apparently feckless, foppish fool with a brilliant invention his father wants to purloin; and Janet, the angry, middle-aged daughter of the house, who makes a last, apparently hopeless, grab at happiness with the works' Foreman, Martin.

As the action unfolds in a cold, gloomy, loveless front parlour on the Yorkshire Moors, it becomes clear that the single power source in the house is the old man. His absorption with work and contempt for his children is reflected in their hatred for him. Fury pours out in both directions, to the point that one is exhausted at the end of the 90 minute first half. When, in the second, events don't go to plan, a strange and interesting negotiation takes place between Rutherford and the only one in the house that is not frightened of him - his working class daughter-in-law, Mary. Githa Sowerby wrote Rutherford & Son in 1912, but the themes of women trapped, men thwarted, and the formalities of class, are perennial. That is its saving grace when this production gets a tad too ruddy and unremittingly loud.

In conclusion: Rutherford & Son is never boring, but the nature of the interactions can be wearing. There are some terrific performances including Sara Poyzer as Janet. She is scorching as the angry, spurned, daughter and the ruddily lovely Richard Standing turns in the single nuanced performance as Martin.

References
St James Theatre, Tickets

St James Theatre, Palace Street, London SW1E 5JA.  Run ends 29 June.