NEW YORK—A marvelous production is being offered via Roundabout Theatre’s revival of Terence Rattigan’s The Winslow Boy. Brought here as an Old Vic production from a successful run in London last year, it features most of the British technical participants. Director Lindsay Posner remains at the helm over a superb cast of both American and British actors.
Taking place in 1912 in a comfortable home in Kensington, an upper middle-class family appears to have all its ducks in order.
Patriarch Arthur Winslow (Roger Rees), a retired banker, accompanied by attractive wife Grace (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), happily rules over his brood of three children. Dickie (Zachary Booth) now attends Oxford; Catherine (Charlotte Parry), an intense suffragette, is comfortably engaged to be married. The youngest sibling Ronnie (Spencer Davis Milford) is away studying at a prestigious naval academy.
However, when Ronnie arrives home prematurely and discloses that he’s been expelled because of an accusation that he’s stolen an inexpensive postal order from another student, the household is thrown into an uproar.
Once Arthur is convinced of Ronnie’s innocence, through the boy’s insistent, tearful denial of the charge, the father is determined to do whatever it takes to prove his son’s innocence and to clear the family’s honor. At the outset of the battle, none of the family realizes just how big a price that will be.
Arthur is able to hire noted barrister Sir Robert Morton (Alessandro Nivola) to take the case. This is considered quite a coup, as according to Catherine, Morton usually handles high-profile cases, and she is suspicious of the advocate’s motives. That the man is also haughty and egotistical further increases Catherine’s disdain of him.
However, once Morton himself is convinced of Ronnie’s innocence—in a fascinating interrogation scene wherein he drags Ronnie over the coals, so to speak—he throws himself into the fray with enthusiasm almost as great as Arthur’s.
However, individual personal advantages gradually erode under the pressure of the trial’s cost and length, with the possible loss of family prestige.
But when Catherine is given the option of dropping the case or continuing, she stubbornly insists: Let Right Be Done, no matter the cost. As Sir Morton says at one point: “It isn’t hard to do justice. It’s very hard to do right.”
At this point, Catherine’s fiance, John Watherstone (Chandler Williams), flees. Another offer of marriage from the less attractive Desmond Curry (Michael Cumpsty) leaves Catherine in conflict. Might it be better to remain an old maid suffragette?
Dickie must leave Oxford, although his father gets him an unexciting job in a bank.
When the family comes to be called a laughingstock, Grace’s nerves become frayed (Mastrantonio soars here). In a vivid outburst, she finally accuses her husband of pursuing the case because of “sheer brute stubbornness” rather than a sense of justice.
Arthur’s health has deteriorated; the others have all suffered. Only Ronnie has gotten through it. He has gone into a satisfactory school and will anyone even remember the issue?
Although the resolution indicates a legal success, the question remains: Was it worth it? Is it really worth fighting for one’s ideals no matter the cost?
Performances are as good as they come. Roger Rees, in particular, conveys all the nuances and changes that Arthur goes through over the timeline of the play.
Lindsay Posner’s intense direction keeps the play’s ups and downs speeding along. Sets and costumes by Peter McKintosh serve as the perfect, seemingly inconsequential accompaniments to this truly passionate story, which was based by Rattigan on an actual incident.
The Winslow Boy
Roundabout Theatre Company and The Old Vic
American Airlines Theatre
227 West 42nd Street
Tickets: 212-719-1300 or visit www.roundabouttheatre.org
Running Time: 2 hours, 40 minutes
Closes: Dec. 1
Diana Barth publishes New Millennium, an arts publication. For information: [email protected].
