Robert Tanitch reviews Welcome Home, Captain Fox! at Donmar Warehouse, London WC2
Jean Anouilh was the most popular French playwright in the mid-20th century, equally successful in Paris and London. I have longed to see his plays revived and so was thrilled when I heard Le Voyageur sans baggage (Traveller without Luggage), the play which had made his name in 1937, was to be staged by the Donmar.
It has not been seen in London since 1959 when it was directed by Peter Hall at the Arts Theatre with Denholm Elliott and Irene Browne in the leading roles.
When World War 1 ended 400,000 French men were listed as missing. In 1922 when a photograph of man suffering from amnesia was reproduced in the newspapers, 400 families laid claim to him.
This event triggered Anouilh’s play. 18 years after the war has ended a war veteran still does not know who he is or was. His family (who had believed he had died in the war) instantly recognizes him as their lost son. But he does not recognize them and is appalled to learn that when he was a young man he was not a nice person at all.
He killed birds and animals for fun. He stole money from his mother. He had an affair with his brother’s wife. He raped the maid.
The family and servants cannot remember when he was happy or when he did a kind or good action. “You were a terrible child,” says his mother; and when he left for the war, she didn’t even bother to see him off, preferring not to miss out on a game of cards.
As he learns more and more about his past life, it becomes clear to him that there is only one thing for him to do.
Welcome Home, Mr Fox! is not a translation but an adaptation. Anthony Weigh has taken the French tragedy and turned it into an American farce. The action is updated to the 1950’s and relocated in the Hampton’s.
Blanche McIntyre’s production is entertaining and Katherine Kingsley. Danny Webb and Sian Thomas are often very amusing.
But why not to do the piece noire Anouilh actually wrote? The play no longer has the stark inevitability of a Greek tragedy (which Anouilh cleverly subverts) and the amnesiac hero (Rory Keenan) is now a much more superficial character.
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