Wish I Had A Sylvia Plath

Published Monday 6 August 2007 at 11:00 by Jeremy Austin

Wish I Had A Sylvia Plath is one of those great fringe experiences - a funny, moving, highly original piece of theatre that is innovative in its presentation, well directed and fabulously performed. All for less than ten quid.

Loosely based on Plath’s last moments, Esther Greenwood is a published poet driven to despair by an unhappy childhood, unappreciative parents, the genius of her husband, Ned Pews(!), and his philandering.

Her last ten seconds of hallucinatory madness are depicted on stage as she discusses her life with the talking oven in which she has recently placed her head, and provides the voices for a expertly shot silent film, in which most of the action takes place.

It is an utterly engrossing hour. As Greenwood, Elisabeth Gray is neurotic and delicate but still manages to convey a great strength as she takes the final stand against her husband.

While the film that she narrates threatens to overshadow her onstage performance, the fact it fails to do so is a testament to the acute understanding director John Farmanesh-Bocca has of the piece.

As with all the best comedy, there is a (fairly obvious) underlying tragedy to the whole thing. It is finally allowed to surface in the end, but does so without falling into cliche or swamping what has been a finely drawn production up to that point.