Robert Tanitch reviews The Truth at Menier Chocolate Factory Theatre, London SE1
Florian Zeller, the multi-award winning French novelist and playwright, is having a big success in Paris and London.
Audiences who have enjoyed his plays, The Father and The Mother, now have a chance to catch up on one of his earlier works, a sexual merry-go-round, once again translated by Christopher Hampton.
The Truth is a typical French boulevard comedy. British theatregoers, who know the plays of Harold Pinter, may be surprised by how much it owes to Pinter’s Betrayal.
Zeller has said there is no psychological coherence in The Truth and that each scene should be played by disregarding the rest of the play.
Michel (Alexander Hanson) is sleeping with Alice (Frances O’Connor), the wife of his best friend, Paul (Robert Portal); and he is outraged when he learns that Paul knew all along from the very beginning of the affair and didn’t tell him he knew.
Michel thinks it is all right for him to be cheating on his wife and best friend and lying but not all right for his wife (Tanya Franks), his best friend and his mistress to be cheating on him and lying.
Michel is an outrageous hypocrite and an absolutely terrible liar. Hanson is very funny.
Zeller has written a companion piece, The Lie, which hopefully, will also be translated.
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