The Truth, Menier Chocolate Factory, London, theatre review: A sophisticated dissection of marital hypocrisies
Alexander Hanson is squirm-making as married Michel who is having an affair with Alice, the wife of his best friend
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We're lost in a labyrinth of deceit in The Truth, the latest piece by the French dramatist Florian Zeller whose hit play The Father (which allows us to view dementia from the perspective of an 80-year-old sufferer) has put him firmly on the map in this country. The Truth is in a much lighter vein. Wittily translated by Christopher Hampton and premiered in Lindsay Posner's elegantly astringent production, it's a sophisticated dissection of marital hypocrisies and a comic, coolly knowing challenge to the credo that honesty is the best policy.
Alexander Hanson is hilariously squirm-making as married Michel who is having an affair with Alice (Frances O'Connor), the wife of his best friend. Whenever his albis are questioned, Michel's tactic is to take to the moral high ground in blustering outrage at not being trusted and he's a dedicated believer in the idea that it's a demonstration of protective love to lie to a cuckolded spouse. He changes his tune when he gradually realises that he's not the only devious operator in this inscrutable quartet. Excellent Robert Portal plays lethally sly power games with Michel as the friend who knew but did not let on. In its depiction of male intimacy and rivalry, even down to tennis as a stand-in for squash, the play advertises its overt and perhaps excessive indebtedness to Pinter's Betrayal.
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