Both performers deliver immensely polished performances despite the mounting improbabilities of its desperate plotting...but there's very little happening below the surface: an empty play and an empty spectacle.
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...for all the play’s illogicalities, Nicholas Hytner’s production is pleasant to watch and boasts two strong performances. Zoë Wanamaker captures to perfection Helen’s bristling anger...'
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The production is competent enough, but it feels like a missed opportunity for two excellent actors to perform what, in theory, should be a fascinating play.'
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With First Ladies this compelling, who needs the Presidents? ...Wanamaker’s Helen is, no surprise, pitch-perfect... No two ways about it: a swift, smart, compelling evening.'
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Tale of two presidential wives needs a few more drafts... The great Zoë Wanamaker and Croatian actress Zrinka Cvitešić give terrific, starkly contrasting performances in this rickety tale...'
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...shafts of light are lost in dialogue that is often inert, and generally unrealistic... Amidst all this Wanamaker and Cvitešic still shine, holding the attention.'
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What a strange play. Sometimes Nancy Harris’s drama seems as calm and measured as an episode of The West Wing. By the end it resembles a handful of pages torn from an Almodóvar screenplay.'
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The idea of dramatising such women... is fruitful. But if the first half is a static, talky piece, Harris’s play takes some unearned and unconvincing swerves that ultimately feel faintly ridiculous.'
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