STAGE REVIEW : A Tribute to Philip Larkin at the Irvine Barclay

Alan Plater’s “Sweet Sorrow,” a fond salute to the late British poet Philip Larkin at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, unfolds with the stately pace of an ocean liner being winched through the Panama Canal.

It moves inevitably toward the sea, and you are either fascinated by its slow passage or you find yourself measuring the inexorable march, inch by inch. In this case, about midway through the first act, my fascination was overwhelmed by a distinct lack of dramatic tension.

The play, which runs through Sunday, has the tone of a didactic elegy written both to display the virtues of Larkin’s poetry (spare, lovely and ironic) and to illustrate his personality (gently humorous, reticent, self-deprecating).

But “Sweet Sorrow” is not, as director John Godber (whose “Bouncers” was a Los Angeles hit in 1986) has claimed, an examination of the artist’s role in society. It does not probe that deeply.

Instead, Plater has written an affectionate account of four fans who gather once a year to pay tribute to Larkin on the anniversary of their first meeting, a jam-packed memorial service held for him at Westminster Abbey in 1986. They listen to his favorite jazz, drink some wine, read some of his work aloud.

For this particular gathering, their fourth, they have come to Hull, the town on the northeast English coast where one of them lives and where Larkin used to work as a university librarian. While they are toasting him, the dead poet himself shuffles onto the white set drenched in white light to the strains of Louis Armstrong’s “West End Blues.”

John Scarborough, outfitted in a charcoal-gray suit and black-framed glasses, looks virtually as Larkin did in life--like a self-described “balding salmon”--to all outward appearances the complete personification of a routine existence.

Larkin is touched by the celebration, even flattered, but as the wistful evening goes on, he is also a little concerned. For all the members of this worshipful band have a tale to tell about how one or another of his poems has changed their lives. This is a responsibility Larkin would rather not shoulder.

Nor does he have to, because each of their revelations--how a teacher’s job was lost, a housewife’s marriage broken, a vicar’s faith destroyed--rarely seems more than the pretext to recite a particular poem. “Sweet Sorrow” plays, in fact, like an elaborately embroidered poetry reading.

The stories, acted out in miniature scenes, serve as bridges to get from one poem to the next. Moreover, all four characters are eager to relieve Larkin of any burden. Says Charles, the vicar who has been de-faithed but not defrocked: “You didn’t destroy my faith. It was already destroyed. You simply described the vacuum.”

Happily, one thing neither they nor the playwright do in their enthusiasm is turn Larkin into an idol with feet of clay. He remains for us what Sidney Bechet’s music was for him: “an enormous yes.” It is only the play that is a little maybe.

That notwithstanding, the production by the Hull Truck Theatre Company is flawlessly acted and immaculately staged.

“Sweet Sorrow” had its world premiere in August at the Edinburgh Festival. It also played for five weeks in Hull, where the touring company is based, and a week in London.

The U.S. premiere at the Irvine Barclay is being presented as part of Orange County’s Festival of Britain, a combination arts celebration and retail promotion.