As You Desire Me

Published Friday 28 October 2005 at 16:50 by Peter Hepple

Quite possibly the least performed of Pirandello’s plays, As You Desire Me is one of the most intriguing. Once again, it features his favourite themes, identity, illusion and reality, and, in this fine new version by Hugh Whitemore, it deals with them both economically and with a strong dramatic drive.

The enigmatically named L’Ignota (The Unknown Woman) is a singer in a Berlin cabaret - the year is 1930 - under the protection and management of the brutish Carl Salter. Already a strangely disoriented figure, she learns from an unknown visitor that she is actually the wife of a wealthy Italian, Bruno Pieri, who has been searching for her since the end of the Great War and wants her back.

Leaving the violent Salter, she travels to Italy and settles down in Pieri’s opulent home, where she is adored by his parents and is apparently happy. But the arrival of Salter, accompanied by a brain-damaged woman, whom he maintains is the real wife, creates a mental crisis for L’Ignota and a decision to return to Berlin.

In a sense, of course, nearly all the characters are leading lives of greater or lesser fantasy, a feeling that hovers throughout the play and in a way encapsulates Pirandello’s feelings on his favourite subject. Which, allied to its economical running time, makes it one of the more notable revivals in this year of elderly plays.

Under Jonathan Kent’s direction and with two masterly designs by Paul Brown, the acting catches fire from the outset, with Bob Hoskins as the explosive Salter and Kristin Scott Thomas capturing superbly the character of L’Ignota, the woman who had learned to be at ease with the fact that she did not know who she was.

There are also two notably good performances by John Carlisle and Margaret Tyzack as Bruno’s elderly parents, who had also decided to live with their illusions.