REVIEW: Almost Instinct Almost True by Rita Ippolit at the Old Red Lion Theatre, 8-12 April
‘There’s an interesting story to tell … ‘ ★★
If you want to see Rita Ippolit’s interesting play about Philip Larkin’s neglected lover Monica, you need to hurry – it is only at the Old Red Lion Theatre near Angel tube station until 12 April; and remember to get there for a 7 pm start, or you will miss half of it – there is no interval and it lasts less than an hour. Is it worth the effort? The answer’s a very definite maybe. There’s an interesting story to tell, and Monica is potentially an interesting character, but Ippolit never quite succeeds either in telling the story or in showing us Monica.
She is a charismatic English Literature university lecturer, hopelessly in love with the poet Philip Larkin, who treats her in an offhand fashion and takes her adoration for granted. The play is about her relationship with a young student, who starts by hero-worshipping her and ends by despairing of her.
And the trouble is that Ippolit never succeeds in making us like or admire Monica, or care much about what happens to her. She seems to be silly, self-indulgent, selfish, pretentious, egoistical and pathetic. I find it hard to care about a woman who, faced with indisputable evidence that her lover is using her as a convenience, looks at the bearer of the bad news with reproachful tear-stained eyes and says: “I love him so much.”
When her student brings her the news of John F. Kennedy’s assassination (the play is set in the early 1960s), we are asked to believe that this high-powered academic, whose students admire her, wants only to talk about the outfit she is wearing, and when drawn back to the news of the day, simply remarks that she never thought much of Jackie Kennedy. When a fellow lecturer gets a promotion she would have liked but did not apply for, she sneers that his suits are not only old and dirty, but cheap.
There are things to like. Julia Munrow plays the character Ippolit as written to perfection. There are some surprises along the way (I won’t spoil them for you). Directors Gregory A. Smith and Lily Whiteside use the intimacy of the tiny theatre to good effect. Teddy Walker as the student makes a good foil to Munrow, though he shouts and wriggles a bit too much. And it is interesting to have this story told; it tells us a good deal about Larkin, whom we do not meet.
The idea is good. The implementation leaves something to be desired.
Cast
Julia Munrow
Teddy Walker
Writer - Rita Ippolit
Director - Gregory A Smith, Lily Whiteside (original
production)
Producer - Izzy Macpherson
Gabriela Chanova
Technician and Lighting designer - Wil Lucas
Music composer - John Walker
Social media - @almostinstinctalmosttrue
