The Sugar Wife: A sabotaged marriage meets an uneasy racism satire
This surprising revival of Elizabeth Kuti’s 19-year-old play feels miscast and misplaced.
Abbey Theatre - Abbey Stage, Dublin
★★☆☆☆
How delectable is the home of Hannah and Samuel Tewkley, a married couple living in a big house with a view of the mountains, in mid-19th century Dublin? He is the owner of a successful tea-trading business, operating out of a popular shop in the city. She is comfortably wealthy to establish charities, and free to preach Quaker beliefs to poor residents in the Liberties.
Yet, despite their riches, they insist on pious austerity as their aesthetic; “I see from your home you have a strict regard for plainness,” remarks one house guest, observing a vast room with unadorned grey walls and wooden surfaces. Either the Abbey Theatre has committed to a vision of spartan emptiness, or – amidst speculation that its upcoming The Boy, a gargantuan play with a cast of 20, has been replaced with the Lady Gregory three-hander Grania – there’s some fuel to rumours about the state of its finances.