ACT Reviews 2022-2023 Season

THE DAY AFTER THE FAIR by Frank Harvey

Director: Anne Wint Players Theatre

This is the stage adaptation based on Thomas Hardy’s 1891 story. “On the Western Front”. While many of us remember two of his most famous novels from our English Literature

classes, “Far from the Madding Crowd” and “Tess of the D’Urbervilles”, this play immediately reminded me of the Hardy prose that takes characters to the verge of hope of love only to dash any thoughts of a happy ending later. In this short story a young Barrister, Charles, falls in love with a young, illiterate housemaid, Anna, in Victorian England, while visiting a country fair. Edith, who is Anna’s mistress, is in a sterile marriage to brewery owner, Arthur. When Anna receives a letter from Charles, she is thrilled but as she is unable to read or write she implores her mistress to respond for her and so begins a pseudo affair as they continue to send and receive love letters. Over time the two fall in love and eventually Charles proposes to Anna and the marriage is organised. The deceit is discovered, but too late. This is, as I have eluded to, a typical, wordy, Hardy story. Each member of the cast must be thoroughly comfortable with the dialogue so it flows at a pace that is maintained and will keep the audience focused. Here the cast, under the direction of Anne Wint, excelled. Ian Wilkinson and Mary Ellis brought light and shade to their roles of Arthur and Letty, his sister. They were believable characters: Arthur revels in his ability to succeed in business but finds it frustrating that his marriage does not follow the same trajectory. Letty, increasingly feels that she is a third wheel in his marriage, and that the household would be better if she moves away and lets his wife, Edith, stand on her own two feet and take charge.