Arnold Wesker’s The Mistress

Every year at the Brighton Fringe one of the highlights is the latest offering from director Nicola Haydn. Last year it was The Open Couple, the year before Oscar Wilde’s The Importance Of Being Ernest, and this year Arnold Wesker’s The Mistress has kept up that standard of excellence and innovation. Having spent some time in collaboration with the playwright himself, this was in essence a premiere of a re-edited version of the one woman one act play in which Samantha, played beautifully by Jo Merriman, works and paces and drinks as she waits impatiently for a call from her married lover while discussing her situation and history with the mute clothes dummies around her designer workshop. Managing to be both merciful and spiteful to herself under the guise of adopting dialogue from her mannequins, this is another layer of Hell as Samantha torments herself articulately and without mercy, Merriman whisking us to the inner workings of this highly educated and charming woman who consistently sets herself apart by a thinly self-appeasing fiction of a ‘romance’. Engaging, if a little sweltering on this balmy evening, and continuing the excellent standard of Ms Haydn.

The Warren, 26 May 2012
[rating: 4.5]
Victoria Nangle