Hapgood

Published Wednesday 16 April 2008 at 12:35 by Richard Edmonds

Watching some of Stoppard’s work is like enduring a crash course in quantum mechanics. Miss a point and you may lose what he is trying to say, so concentration is all and to hell with theatre as entertainment.

But Hapgood is intriguing and the good sections surface from chunks of material, and if occasionally you forget the initial plot, you may well come back on track before the denouement (yes, clever though he is, Stoppard still likes that old-fashioned theatrical device the clever denouement).

Rachel Kavanaugh’s direction is smooth, elegant and fast-moving, backed by a moody film noir score - how well a lonely saxophone eases in suspense from the shadows. A gun is drawn, a swimming pool changing area provides a warren of bolt holes for erring spies swapping top-secret info about a nuclear device and a dark secret lurks behind Hapgood herself, a sort of M figure in the Bond/Judi Dench mould, played with determination and a sense of relish by Josie Lawrence.

Perhaps Stoppard is expressing his own horror of a world where a child (Hapgood’s son) can be snatched and held as a pawn in a ruthless bargaining game between the Russians and us. Then again, this becomes a play where twins are involved in the spy-master game to make things even more difficult. Even the Hapgood we see at one point is actually a twin, brought in from somewhere in order to deflect attention from the major players in this curious chess game where double-crossing is the only vade mecum understood by both sides.

But who is the father of Hapgood’s child? Lawrence suggests a woman powerful enough to have fathered it herself.

A very strong cast and lots of interesting set changes make this a rewarding evening, with a feast of Stoppardian throwaways to take home.