A maddened leader surrounded by flattering sycophants and slipping into senility. Betrayal, backstabbing, a nation under siege. No, I’m not describing King Lear, though the similarities are by no means coincidental. I’m describing The Dresser, a 1980 play by Ronald Harwood that revolves around a dysfunctional British theatre troupe’s performance of the aforementioned tragedy—in January of 1942.
And though I wouldn’t say that this curiously captivating piece quite rises to the level of its Shakespearean predecessor, it’s hard to imagine any production of the work telling the story better than Palm Beach Dramaworks’ current incarnation. One of the clearest reasons for this is the outstanding strength of its two leading performers—Colin McPhillamy, who plays the fading, Lear-like actor-manager of the troupe referred to only as Sir, and William Hayes, who plays the titular character in Sir’s faithful dresser Norman.
Likely due to the nature of his larger-than-life role, it’s McPhillamy whose work is more obviously impressive. Having spent decades on the road leading the troupe and mastering Shakespeare’s meatiest parts, Sir is now struggling to remember not only his lines but even what show he is eminently expected to star in. McPhillamy sells the heck out of his character’s wild swings from confidence to vulnerability—one moment boisterously pontificating and the next collapsing into tears. We can see in the actor’s nuanced performance both the magnetism and charisma that made Sir a star worthy of the other characters’ adoration and his desperation as a man who, in reckoning with the increasingly undeniable deterioration of his faculties, must suddenly question his life’s worth.
For most of the show, Hayes’ Norman serves as a perfectly droll “straight man” of sorts to McPhillamy’s bravura madman. During his many years of service to Sir and his company, he has become more of an all-purpose servant and emotional ballast to the man than his professional position would imply, a role that has become increasingly vital as Sir has become increasingly unhinged.
On the day on which The Dresser takes place, these issues have reached a crisis point that incites talk of canceling the performance—but, as a co-dependent unit, Norman and Sir perhaps take the idea of “the show must go on” a bit too far. Tasked with trying to keep Sir calm enough to survive the show, Norman suppresses his own anxieties and existential doubt with subtle sips of whisky. When these emotions finally do rise to the surface in the play’s striking conclusion, Hayes’ performance becomes absolutely shattering.
The two stars are backed up by an excellent supporting cast that includes Denise Cormier as Her Ladyship, Sir’s long-time lover and co-star; Elizabeth Dimon as no-nonsense stage manager Madge; Kelly Gibson as naive ingenue Irene; and Dennis Creaghan, Gary Cadwaller, Cliff Goulet, and John Campagnuolo as other actors in the company.
Meanwhile, in case you didn’t already do the math, the play’s time and place puts these particular players against the backdrop of World War II. Though this aspect adds texture and tension throughout, it is mostly peripheral to the play’s main plot, given that not even an immediate physical threat related to this setting can deter the group from their consuming theatrical mission. Consequently, I was somewhat put off by the characters’ tendency to minimize the magnitude of the political turmoil surrounding them—and their willingness to cruelly cut down one another—in their self-important devotion to their respective theatrical careers.
Though aspects of this portrayal may resonate as inspirational with any “theatre people” in the audience, the dreary cynicism and downbeat ending of The Dresser as a whole certainly make it an unusual pick for especially the holiday season. And while Sir was certainly a compelling central character, his myopic narcissism meant he wasn’t a particularly likeable one—meaning that Norman’s self-effacing complicity in fueling this destructive egotism at times made him unsympathetic as well.
At times, I also found myself growing weary of the play’s slow pace, though this was more an issue in its first half than in a more embodied and suspenseful Act 2. The play also perks up in its more comedic moments, with bits of biting British humor peppered throughout the dialogue and Sir’s senility occasionally mined for some broader slapstick gags.
More than in most shows, the work of costume designer Brian O’keefe is also particularly essential to The Dresser’s success. As Norman helps Sir strip from his street clothes down to his skivvies and then into Lear’s elegant royal garb, the visual transformation perfectly echoes Sir’s thematic duality. The excellence of Anne Mundell’s scenic design and Roger Arnold sound design were especially noticeable during our in-the-wings front row seat to King Lear’s famous storm sequence, in which the actors and crew create the soundscape of the scene by physically laboring over period-appropriate instruments.
In terms of other technical aspects, Kirk Bookman’s lighting design and Ben Furey’s work as dialect coach were similarly impressive. Last but not least, director J. Barry Lewis definitely deserves considerable accolades in his extraordinary engineering of this somewhat uneven piece into a cohesive and affecting theatrical experience.
