The Last of the Haussmans
Anarchic, feisty but growing old, high society drop-out Judy Haussman remains in spirit with the Ashrams of the 1960s while holding court in her dilapidated Art Deco house on the Devon coast. After an operation, she’s joined by wayward offspring Nick and Libby, sharp-eyed granddaughter Summer, local doctor Peter, and Daniel, a troubled teenager who makes use of the family’s crumbling swimming pool. Together they share a few sweltering months as they alternately cling to and flee this louche and chaotic world of all-day drinking, infatuations, long-held resentments, free love and failure.
3.7 out of 5 based on 11 reviews
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Omniscore:
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| Location |
London |
| Venue |
National Theatre, Lyttelton |
| Director |
Howard Davies |
| Cast |
Rory Kinnear, Helen McCroy, Matthew Marsh, Julie Walters, Isabella Laughland, Taron Egerton |
| From |
June 2012 |
| Until |
September 2012 |
| Box Office |
020 7452 3000 |
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Anarchic, feisty but growing old, high society drop-out Judy Haussman remains in spirit with the Ashrams of the 1960s while holding court in her dilapidated Art Deco house on the Devon coast. After an operation, she’s joined by wayward offspring Nick and Libby, sharp-eyed granddaughter Summer, local doctor Peter, and Daniel, a troubled teenager who makes use of the family’s crumbling swimming pool. Together they share a few sweltering months as they alternately cling to and flee this louche and chaotic world of all-day drinking, infatuations, long-held resentments, free love and failure.
Reviews
The Observer
Kate Kellaway
“It is a knockout – entertaining, sad and outrageous. If he has more of this quality to write, he is going to be a major name. It is about a family – three generations of Haussmans – and it has a self-destructive gaiety that might remind one of Tennessee Williams were it not that Beresford is British, and his own man and that his style is in no way derivative. The writing is as exuberantly high-functioning as the hippy dynasty it describes is dysfunctional. And the richness – the sense of multi-layered life on stage – is wonderful although at times almost too much to take in. At the end, I felt I needed to see it all over again not to miss a trick.
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24/06/2012
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The Evening Standard
Henry Hitchings
“The play itself isn’t perfect. There are moments when it seems contrived, and Daniel appears to be little more than a plot device. But Beresford, previously known as an actor, has a keen ear and is adept at creating scenes full of conflict. His writing drips with smart lines – and pathos, too. By the end The Last of the Haussmans feels like a tribute to Chekhov, mixing spontaneous humour with despair.”
20/06/2012
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The Financial Times
Ian Shuttleworth
“It feels a little odd for the National Theatre. Director Howard Davies is one of the National’s stalwarts, and doesn’t shirk here; nor is there any reason why it shouldn’t stage a new work that has less of a point to make than much of its repertoire. A generation ago, this sort of new play would still have had a chance of a West End launch; the fact that they now need subsidised houses for exposure is an indictment of the timidity of the commercial sector, not of the South Bank. But for the NT, these Haussmans are a bit, well, boulevard.”
20/06/2012
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The Daily Mail
Quentin Letts
“Nick shouts at his mother that the revolution of the flower-power age was far less influential than the revolution of Thatcher and Reagan. I suspect that the Left is underselling itself. The legacy of egalitarianism, for instance the welfare state and modern western decadance, is far more deadly than anything bequeathed to us by Maggie and Ron. In alighting on a sense of moral collapse, however, London theatre is certainly on to something.”
20/06/2012
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The Stage
Mark Shenton
“Though there’s a lot of shouting between these brittle, damaged family members, the play’s spilling emotions are held in check by the subtlety of the playing so that it always feels utterly authentic. Walters inhabits the larger-than-life Judy with an extravagant intensity that makes her continued hold over her children utterly plausible - as her wounded, defensive offspring, Kinnear and McCrory offer minutely observed character studies that are rich in detail and drama.”
20/06/2012
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The Times
Libby Purves
“After the interval the play gels, despite an odd interlude in which Judy’s cancer drugs derange her. Not only does she recover her articulacy but the play does too, becoming a proper argument about whether muddled Sixties idealism has anything to say. For absurdity and glory can co-exist, and there is wisdom in the old: even old hippies. After revelations (again Chekhovian) about the property’s fate, Walters rises to her serious moment.”
20/06/2012
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The Independent on Sunday
Kate Bassett
“Blips aside, though, this is a very fine, strongly cast premiere, and Beresford captures conversational quirks delightfully. The Last of the Haussmans becomes raw and tender as well, ultimately embracing far-reaching issues: an inheritance drama, then, not just about bricks and mortar, but also about the psychological legacy of the Sixties.”
24/06/2012
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The Daily Telegraph
Dominic Cavendish
“there’s little disguising the fact that Beresford’s gift for droll dialogue isn’t yet matched by a grasp of dramatic direction. The minor characters - Libby’s sulky teenage daughter, the shy local lad who uses the family pool for training, the adulterous doctor - give one little more to chew on than a plate of old lentils. And if at times the play moves into a quasi Chekhovian register of tragicomic regret, at other points it resembles a joss-stick, merely trailing pleasing fumes into the air. Still, there’s always enough going on to keep you tuned in, rather than dropping out. ”
20/06/2012
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The Guardian
Michael Billington
“Beresford never seems wholly sure what kind of play he wants to write. Partly we get yet another English variation on The Cherry Orchard, with a feckless family seeing their rambling property grabbed from under their noses. But Beresford also sets out to show the damage inflicted by 1960s revolutionaries on their immediate successors. He certainly shows a gift for vivid phrases ... But one woman, who flogged radical newspapers and hauled her children around India, is hardly an adequate symbol for an era that brought about a genuine social revolution; and, having put his heroine in the dock, Beresford then seems to fall half in love with her.”
20/06/2012
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The Independent
Paul Taylor
“Whether flashing her genitals at David Dimbleby with a randy glee, or delivering revolutionary statements with a vague grandeur like some ex-flower-power version of Coward's Judith Bliss, [Walters is] a wrinkly, but still determined free spirit, who thinks that private property is a form of covert government control and that residents associations are “worse than the Stasi”.”
20/06/2012
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The Sunday Times
Christopher Hart
“Do we like any of the characters enough for nearly three hours of their “bullshit theatrics”, as Nick calls them? The play doesn’t know when to end, rambling on like the Grateful Dead. Admittedly the characters are “colourful”, but so are jellybeans, and there’s only so many you can eat. And are they not colourful in quite a clichéd way? How interesting do constant drinking, smoking, swearing and drugs really make anyone? Might an overlong evening at Judy’s not actually be as boring, in its way, as a Fairtrade dinner with the Dimblebums? As it is, Beresford delivers a remarkably even-handed play, weighing up the pros and cons.
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24/06/2012
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