Skylight review: Carrey Mulligan shines in the West End

Never have I ever loved Carry Mulligan so much until the day I saw the West End production of Skylight, a play written by the one and only David Hare in 1995 and now revived by an all-star cast: Bill Nighy, Carrey Mulligan and Matthew Beard, under the direction of Stephen Daldry.

The play surrounds the interaction between Tom (played by Nighy) and Kyra (played by Mulligan) in a cold, lower middle class rise flat in Kensal. Tom was suffering from the grief over his wife’s death over a year ago and the guilt of having his wife found out the affair between Tom and Kyra. However, the story does not stop there. As the conversation progresses, Kyra and Tom discovers that regardless of the great time they had all those years ago, they are in fact very different people. This was demonstrated by Tom’s disappointment over Kyra’s choice to move into a flat of poor conditions and teaching in an East End public school.

But this is where David Hare’s magic comes into play. The intertwined notions of passion and politics, the gulf between the polarising classes conquering over love and irrationality, one that could not be bridged in the end.

In her West End debut, Carrey Mulligan shows the audience a person in perpetual conflict. Being the daughter of a solicitor and having been staying with an entrepreneur lover, she could have had the life many people purported to have dreamt of. However, she made the choice to teach in a tough school.

The highlight of the performance gravitated around Mulligan’s intense monologue on social welfare, right wing politics and how society is holding double standards on those who are willing to take a massive pay-cut and a drop in their standard of living just to help those in need.

Without any further a due, here is the monologue:

“Female? That’s a very odd choice of word.

You see I’m afraid I think this is typical. It’s something that’s happened . . . it’s only happened of late. That people should need to ask why I’m helping these children.

I’m helping them because they need to be helped.

Everyone makes merry, discussing motive. Of course she does this. She works in the East End. She only does it because she’s unhappy. She does it because of a lack in herself. She doesn’t have a man. If she had a man, she wouldn’t need to do it. Do you think she’s a dyke? She must be fucked up, she must be an Amazon, she must be a weirdo to choose to work where she does…

Well I say, what the hell does it matter why I’m doing it? Why anyone goes out and helps? The reason is hardly of primary importance. If I didn’t do it, it wouldn’t get done.

I’m tired of these sophistries. I’m tired of these right-wing fuckers. They wouldn’t lift a finger themselves. They work contentedly in offices and banks. Yet now they sit pontificating in parliament, in papers, impugning our motives, questioning our judgements. And why? Because they themselves need to feel better by putting down everyone whose work is so much harder than theirs. You only have to say the words ‘social worker’…’probation officer’ …’counsellor’… for everyone in this country to sneer.

Do you know what social workers do? Every day? They try and clear out society’s drains. They clear out the rubbish. They do what no one else is doing, what no one else is willing to do. And for that, oh Christ, do we thank them? No, we take our own rotten consciences, wipe them all over the social worker’s face, and say ‘if….’FUCK! ‘if I did the job, then of course if I did it . . . oh no, excuse me, I wouldn’t· do it like that …’

Well I say: ‘OK, then, fucking do it, journalist. Politician, talk to the addicts. Hold families together. Stop the kids from stealing in the streets. Deal with couples who beat each other up. You fucking try it, why not? Since you’re so full of advice. Sure, come and join us. This work is one big casino. By all means. Anyone can play. But there’s only one rule. You can’t play for nothing. You have to buy some chips to sit at the table. And if you won’t pay with your own time… with your own effort… then I’m sorry. Fuck off!”

Enough said, isn’t it?

Indeed, sincerest congratulations to Mulligan for such a great performance in delivering an intense monologue on society. That being said, this play is also one of the powerful ones for David Hare’s sharp observation and portrayal of a society with polarised values by the polarised classes. After all, one thing David Hare wants to tell us, is that even when two people are in a shared passion for each other, who loved each other more than anyone else, could never reconcile with each other for they have opposing values.

For our American readers, Skylight will be shown on stage in Broadway at the John Golden Theatre (252 West 45th Street, New York, NY 10036) from 16th March to 21 June 2015.

Originally published at The Typewriter.