Rabbit Hole review, Hampstead Theatre

A play about the loss of a child isn't an obvious subject for an entertainment, but done properly, we know death is an excellent tool for exploring the human psyche. Unfortunately Rabbit Hole falls into the same trap as the Almeida's recent production of Little Eyolf - the grieving adult characters are so cold and distant that it is hard to empathise despite two unremitting hours of grief, despair, mistrust, misunderstanding, anger, confusion, and pain. Part of the problem is the play feels like a study in grief that has been turned into a rather clever drama. The other part is the casting.

Rabbit Hole is about the road death of a four-year-old American boy. His parents, Howie and Becca, are dealing with the loss differently - she through the mechanised organisation of their home and the steady erasing of memories, and he by holding on to the good times and creating a time bubble. When Becca's sister Izzy falls pregnant it blows a hole through their pretences and the couple is steadily forced to confront and question their responses to their son's loss.

The problem I had with Rabbit Hole was it looked and felt English.  There's nothing on the set, a suburban house, that feels even vaguely American and having seen David Lindsay-Albaire's brilliant play, Good People, which worked brilliantly at Hampstead  two years back, I wonder if it is the leads that are wrong. Tom Goodman-Hill (from Mr Selfridge) as Howie and Claire Skinner (the wonderful mother in Outnumbered) as Becca, are excellent, but they're buttoned up in a very repressed drawing-room-drama way.  As a result, when Becca's mother - Downton's Penny Downie - and her sister Izzy (Georgina Rich) bristle with underlying emotion in default US mode, they feel over the top. A lovely surprise is Sean Delaney making his stage debut as the teenage car driver. 

In conclusion: Rabbit Hole lacks the humour and passion of Good People though it won the Pulitzer Prize. Having bought a ticket without realising the arc of the story, I did find myself wondering if any drama about the death of a child is a must-see. Not, I think, unless you're a social worker, a psychotherapist, or a friend (or devoted fan) of the cast.  

References

Rabbit Hole, Tickets

Rabbit Hole, Hampstead Theatre, Eton Avenue, London NW3.   Run ends March 5.