Splendour

Abi Morgan

Everyman Theatre, Liverpool - September 2000

Four women are awaiting the arrival of the General in a large house on the edge of an unspecified European city. The General's wife, Micheline, at first at ease with the extravagant but tasteless home, soon begins to doubt his return. As her meretricious charms fade, she is increasingly impudent towards her best friend, Genevieve, while trying to maintain the courtesies with Kathryn, a sneering war-photographer who has come to take the General's picture.

As the play proceeds there unfolds an opaque political element to the dialogue. Is the General a dictator? Was the death of Genevieve's first husband related to the military activity that can be heard in the background?

As the women drink, snipe, confess or conceal they reveal their true opinions. Micheline for all her lurid home comforts and grand talk cannot disguise her bitchy insecurity. Class issues come to the fore when Gilma exposes the north/south divide with its attendant prejudices.