Keep Calm and Carry On

Whenever Brenda Blethyn isn’t on stage, Edna O’Brien’s Haunted, part of the Brits Off Broadway Fest at 59E59 Theaters, is a wispy, hallucinatory bore, with distracting projections that quickly go from decorative to bizarre. But every time Blethyn marches into Simon Higlett’s genteelly shabby living room set as the indomitable Mrs. Berry, all brash and brass, things take a comfortingly corporeal turn.

One performance, however, does not transform a three-character, two-act play into top-tier entertainment, even when that performance is as funny and wrenching as Blethyn’s. A stale story about a middle-aged couple staring old age and their faltering marriage in the face, Haunted, alas, does not focus on Blethyn’s cozy wife. Instead, we’re forced to suffer through her husband’s increasingly desperate lecherousness, which quickly reveals itself to be O’Brien’s primary focus.

Under the direction of Braham Murray, Niall Buggy portrays Mr. Berry with the single-minded focus of a serial killer. Entranced by the young Hazel, who mistakenly stops by his apartment to purchase a coatee, a sort of short coat, Mr. Berry goes to increasingly intricate steps to continue her visits and keep them a secret from his wife. In addition to giving her Mrs. Berry’s clothes (he claims his wife is dead), Mr. Berry also elicits elocution lessons from her. This eventually poses a problem, since Beth Cooke, as Hazel, doesn’t possess the requisite crystalline diction that would sell her performance.

The aging roué can still be a source of both comedy and pathos, as Peter O’Toole showed in his Oscar-nominated performance in the 2006 Venus. But Buggy doesn’t even come close to approximating the waggishness of O’Toole, leaving us with a character who comes across as much colder and crueler than necessary. He flies off into flights of Shakespeare, showering Hazel with compliments and lies. But the greatest error in the production is allowing Mr. Berry to seem sadistic, as he does when his lies begin to unravel and Mrs. Berry’s carefully coiffed exterior begins to crumble. Still obsessed with the quiescent and lovely Hazel, Mr. Berry ignores his wife’s heartbroken entreaties and retreats into mourning the young woman he’ll never again see.

The play could easily become a stiff-upper lipped version of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? without Blethyn’s remarkable performance. Funny and frumpy, she’s a powerhouse performer who crafts something real and desperate out of Mrs. Berry’s anguish. Blethyn transforms a second-act confrontation into a tour de force, keeping audiences chuckling even as their pulses pound at what she might be capable of. The fragile Hazel—and Cooke—doesn’t stand a chance, either against Mrs. Berry or Blethyn. As we watch this lovable woman, who likes to drink Madeira after she’s kicked her shoes off, turn into a lioness defending her home, the thought that any man could prefer a silly little thing like Hazel, no matter how young, is as ridiculous as the idea that any semi-intelligent woman would find Buggy’s frantic flirting endearing. Blethyn’s performance is like a hot cup of tea on a cold day: bracing, comforting and, above all else, enjoyable.

Haunted

Through Jan. 2, 2011, 59E59 Theaters, 59 E. 59th St. (betw. Park & Madison Aves.), 212-279-4200; $45.