Max Ernst desperately wanted to capture the essence of his
lover Leonora Carrington but, all too often, she just wanted a cup of tea.
Alice Allemano’s first professional full-length play is
remarkably composed and strikingly clear-headed. It juggles expectations about
hero worship (for him and for her) and ends up being kind-hearted and inspiring
in a universal way: one of the most holistic and wholly satisfying debuts you
could expect to find.
About Leo was
showing as part of the Jermyn Street Theatre’s Rebels season and is based on Alice’s
own discovery of the free-spirited, ground-breaking and grounded artistic
outsider following a visit to the Tate, Liverpool in 2015. Like Alice I had
never heard of “Leo” before although I had heard of Max Ernst, her lover for
three years and a major figure himself, so much so that Leo, if she was
mentioned at all, was described his muse.
“I have never, in my
life, for one moment, been anyone’s muse. I was too busy rebelling against my
family and learning to be an artist.”
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| Artistic balance? Nigel Whitmey and Phoebe Pryce |
As with other artistic relationships, one thinks of Suzanne
Valadon and Degas (not to mention Eric Satie) or Lizzie Siddal and Dante
Rossetti, the inspiration flowed both ways and the balance of ability was not
always male-dominated.
This is spectacularly the case for Leonora who became one of
the most significant artists in Mexico and hugely successful in other ways too,
finding her own way on her own terms; free not only of her father’s controlling
instincts and her upper-middle class programming but also any need to be
regarded as an artistic appendage to a man, even one as talented as Max Ernst.
With deft direction from Michael Oakley, Allemano’s play is
superbly interpreted by a strong cast featuring Eleanor Wyld as young journalist
Eliza Prentice who, perhaps, acts as the author’s voice. Eleanor is a woman in
search of confidence and direction and arrives unannounced in Mexico to find
out more about the now aged artist: almost unknown in Britain: her chance for a
first feature… in a professional life constrained by expectation and the cost
of living.
Susan Tracy plays this Leo whilst Phoebe Pryce plays the younger
and both are well cast: Phoebe even looks like a younger Leo whilst Susan Tracy
oozes life-experience and wisdom even if it is filtered through copious amounts
of tequila. The two ages of Leo sometimes overlap as the story flicks from “now”
(Carrington passed in 2011) to 1939 just as the War started and the young
artist’s life with her lover is about to change for ever.
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| Eleanor Wyld and Susan Tracy |
Nigel Whitmey is an intense Max Ernst, full of male
single-minded drive and involved in an ongoing struggle to “capture” the
perfect picture of the woman he loves so passionately. The interplay between
the two is playful and yet so earnest (no demi-pun intended) – they’re not in
competition but their methodologies and philosophy rubs the against the other
sparking human passions as well as artistic frustrations.
Leo tells Eliza: “I
knew that I had met the greatest risk of my life and I fell… he radiated life”
and yet, she still held back “you have to
own your soul. It’s a disaster to hand it over to any man…”
Leo is driven by animalistic response and has always "heard" the sound of wild horses - she calls herself a horse and Mexico the land of horses - a metaphor for her artistic impulse, the speed of life, the need to be simply natural...
This is a force to be reckoned with and channelled. She resists being pigeon-holed as Ernst’s fellow
surrealist, Andre Breton’s “Enlightened
Child”; a woman unaware of her artistic power and direction… a “femme innocent”. I’m not sure of the
full content of Breton’s statements but it’s clear Leo was every bit as “deliberate”
about her work as any man and refused to be reduced to the level of an almost
unconscious creator…
She also never missed her home country with it’s “labels”
and found freedom even after what Eliza had naturally assumed would have been
the end of the perfect creative union once Ernst was taken away by the German authorities
after the invasion of France.
The answers are not that simple and yet neither are they
sad, as Eliza drinks more and more of her host’s tequila she discovers the
full, happy truth of a great talent fulfilled…
The moves from 1939 to 2010 are handled so smoothly and the
delight is in seeing Loe start to interview her interviewer; pushing Eliza to
listen to her own creative impulses and not give in to compromise so soon in
her life… Art and the Artist can still inspire at any age.
I went with my daughter and she loved it to: she’s still at university,
a few years younger than Eliza… but still with much to decide. Tonight, she
found some new role models.
A tip of the hat too for Amy Mae, who's lighting created some unexpected depth and mood for the JST's performance area... almost mystical, I'd have to say!!
About Leo runs at
the Jermyn Street Theatre until Saturday September 29. Tickets are available from the Box Office or online. Do not miss it!
IThankYouTheatre Rating: **** An amazingly balanced first play that will leave you questioned and questioning
for days… Listen to your inner animus!
All photographs are from Bob Workman.
All photographs are from Bob Workman.
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