27 June – 19 July
It is an arresting opening image – a group of actors emerge from the swirling mist backstage and step forwards towards us, as if transported from the Victorian past to the present day.
In Grace Pervades veteran playwright David Hare has written a warm and witty homage to theatre itself. Beginning in 1878, at its heart is a portrait of the relationship, both professional and personal, between the great actor-manager Henry Irving (Ralph Fiennes – magnetic) and the brilliant actress Ellen Terry (Miranda Raison – delightful). His knighthood and her damehood signalled that the establishment had at last bestowed a degree of respectability on the acting profession, which is somewhat ironic given that in her private life Terry fell far short of the moral standards of her time. Her comment, ‘My personal history is not without blemish’ is something of an understatement – ‘Grace pervades the hussy,’ was a double-edged compliment given to her in a review. Irving, too, was not without blemish, having long been separated from his wife, though whether he had an affair with Terry remains an open question.
The action begins with a sharp hand clap, as Irving commands the attention of his actors after a break in rehearsal. Fiennes shows Irving as a man convinced of the importance of his work, but weighed down by the responsibility of running the Lyceum Theatre. When no-one else was available to repair a torn seat in the auditorium, he would set to with needle and thread. He seems entirely confident both of his skill as an actor and of his decision-making as a manager. But that self-assurance is gently shaken by Ellen Terry. The best and often funniest scenes in Grace Pervades are those where she challenges the great man over some of his mannerisms, such as his habit of never looking at his fellow actors when on stage.
There is little doubt that today we would find Irving’s style rather hammy, but Fiennes wisely downplays the histrionics. However we do see him as hostile to new theatre – he hated Shaw – and he is an obsessive workaholic. Terry, in contrast, joyfully embraces life beyond the theatre; while she is the human heart of the story, all light-hearted spontaneity, Irving is all darkly brooding seriousness.
Grace Pervades is presented as a series of twenty-five short scenes, and those where we see snippets of Irving’s productions offer an opportunity for Fiennes and Raison to give us very enjoyable if all-too-brief glimpses of major Shakespearian characters. The brevity of the narrative scenes precludes a deep exploration of Irving’s relationship with Terry, and many sequences are not concerned with them at all, but are focused instead on Terry’s illegitimate children, theatre director Edith Craig (Ruby Ashbourne Serkis) and director and scenic designer Edward Gordon Craig (Jordan Metcalfe). Their stories are not without interest, though there is a sense that the play loses shape and direction when it moves away from Irving and Terry. Edward Gordon Craig’s determined but impractical modernism comes in for a great deal of mockery, suggesting that Hare has not always seen eye-to-eye with directors bursting with new ideas, particularly those who do not give primacy to the words on the page. Gordon Craig’s preference for movement rather than the spoken word is embodied in the figure of his lover, dancer Isadora Duncan (Saskia Strallen).
Diffuse of theme and occasionally too expository in style, Grace Pervades loses its way at times, but there are very real strengths. The dialogue sparkles, and director Jeremy Herrin and set designer Bob Crowley have ensured that there is always something to engage interest and please the eye. Above all, Ralph Fiennes and Miranda Raison give thoroughly captivating performances that vividly recreate two seminal figures of British theatre, one with all the grandeur of an imposing monument, the other the epitome of a free spirit.
★★★★☆ Mike Whitton, 5 July 2025
Photo credit: Marc Brenner
