‘Amy’s View’ on the State of an Art

When a play comes to America hitched to a star, as did the David Hare drama “Amy’s View” last spring, audiences tend to experience the star--Judi Dench, straight off her Oscar for “Shakespeare in Love”--rather than the play. Dench presold “Amy’s View” and gave Broadway audiences what they wanted: a stirring, witty, unusually subtle tour de force, in a two-act moan of despair over the state of English theater. Hare’s thesis? The theater is better than its rival mediums because only in the theater can an artist address real problems, real emotions, real Realpolitik.

The West Coast premiere of “Amy’s View” opened over the weekend at Costa Mesa’s South Coast Repertory. No Dench; no celebrity distractions. It’s a straight, clean, earnestly acted production directed by Mark Rucker.

Linda Thorson, Tara King on “The Avengers,” well-schooled in Shakespeare and underwear farce, takes the Dench role: stage actress Esme Allen, the charismatic force field and zinger-dispenser at the center of the play.

“Amy’s View” begins in 1979 and ends in 1995. Esme, whose painter husband has died years earlier, lives in rural Berkshire, near London. Her West End acting career has hit hard times. Her daughter, Amy (Christina Haag), brings to Esme’s house a new boyfriend, Dominic (Don Reilly), an aspiring filmmaker at the moment making his living as an arts journalist.

Dominic is the wanker compleat, a boorish poseur whose worst behavior is described as “incredibly stubborn and ugly.” The second that Amy declares her unconditional love for this man, it’s an uh-oh moment. His faddishness and self-absorption rile Esme. Dominic and Esme eventually come to a nasty impasse. Esme and Amy come to another.

Meantime, Esme runs afoul of English greed, embodied by Lloyd’s of London. Insurance investments set up by Esme’s doting neighbor Frank (Richard Doyle) feed her money into high-risk syndicates. The results bankrupt many new investors, Esme among them. Worse, it subjects her to nearly unlimited liability, lifelong indentured servitude. Permanently broke, by play’s end, Esme takes solace only in her craft. The final scene, set backstage at a stage performance, reunites Esme and a somewhat chastened Dominic.

Hare’s skills as a dramatist--his precise ear, his rhythmic surety, his ability to jack up the tension and the outrage--have always come at a price. In “Amy’s View,” the price is a two-act finger-wagging. Hare has said he intended the play to be “annoying.” Well . . . Caryl Churchill, the playwright I think of every time someone calls Hare England’s finest living dramatist, managed in “Top Girls” to express worlds of outrage over Thatcher’s England without that hectoring tone. Like many previous Hare women (Isobel in “The Secret Rapture,” Kyra in “Skylight”), Amy in “Amy’s View” represents goodness and patience incarnate. She’s no match for the surrounding Thatcherite and post-Thatcherite forces of self-righteousness.

As Esme, Thorson plays much of the play in gay-and-witty mode. Rather than keeping us off-guard, or tempering the portentousness, Thorson’s touch lacks focus and gravity. She finds it, though, in the fourth of four scenes, the backstage encounter. It’s wonderfully acted, and Thorson captures her character’s weary dignity perfectly.

Haag’s warm, openhearted Amy works well in counterpoint throughout. Reilly’s Dominic manages to mitigate some of the character’s relentless schmuckiness. Doyle finesses just-so the scene where we learn the extent of neighbor Frank’s insurance-scandal culpability. As Evelyn, Esme’s infirm mother-in-law, Patricia Fraser is eloquent and moving. Lars Carlson’s apprentice actor Toby in the final scene overplays his (scripted) overeagerness, but he’s enjoyable anyway.

Scored to Sting and the Police, director Rucker’s staging provides a steady pace--too steady, perhaps. Early on, the pacing suggests that the arguments must be laid out for us slowly and clearly. No need. No need, either, for fussing with the final image, that of Esme and Toby in performance, as seen from behind. Rucker adds a few beats of action just before a blackout that diminish an effective coda.

Hare’s play grinds Esme down to a fine, noble powder. England bad--fearless actress good. To some “Amy’s View” has much more to say on many subjects than that. To others, we’re left with a stacked deck and a play depicting, ruthlessly but bloodlessly, the effects of what Esme deems a “tedious and shaming” yet innately sanctifying profession.

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“Amy’s View,” South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7:30 p.m.; Saturdays-Sundays, 2:30 p.m. Ends May 14. $28-$47. (714) 708-5555. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

Linda Thorson: Esme Allen

Christina Haag: Amy

Don Reilly: Dominic Tyghe

Richard Doyle: Frank

Patricia Fraser: Evelyn

Lars Carlson: Toby

Written by David Hare. Directed by Mark Rucker. Set by James Youmans. Costumes by Shigeru Yaji. Lighting by Geoff Korf. Sound by Mitchell Greenhill. Wigs by Carol F. Doran. Production stage managers Julie Haber and Kristen Ahlgren.