“You think people are dead, but that’s not always the case.”

Florian Zeller is a French novelist, playwright and screenwriter whose best-known dramatic works are The Father and The Truth, which garnered an Olivier Award nomination for Best Comedy. Written in 2016, The Height of the Storm premiered at Richmond before transferring to London’s West End in 2018, starring Jonathan Pryce and Eileen Atkins. It was named ‘best play of 2018’ and ‘one of the best plays of the 21st century’ by The Guardian.

Set in a French country house, not far from Paris, The Height of the Storm concerns a couple (André and Madeleine) looking back at their 50 years of marriage and realising their relationship may not be as perfect as they expected. On this weekend, their two daughters, Anne and Élise, and a woman from the past arrive, and we learn that there’s been a recent funeral, although it’s not obvious who’s actually died. It may be that it’s André or Madeleine, even though both are on stage, appearing to speak to other characters, although at different times one or other of them doesn’t seem to have been heard by the rest.

The play considers similar themes to his earlier works, such as The Father, as it looks at the impact of dementia on both the sufferer and the surrounding family. The play is also very reminiscent of plays by Pinter in that it examines the subjectivity of truth and the pain of the loss of a loved one. The play runs for around 80 minutes with no interval.

In terms of the set – a French country house – Ian Bage’s design, constructed by him and his large team, made great use of your space. While your stage height meant you could not effect the high ceilings seen in the West End production, the country kitchen feel was a perfect substitute. There were dark blue walls and heavy wood surround with a clever use of angles to give a library section upstage. This gave a feel of the house beyond the kitchen and allowed a depth to the stage groupings as people could be way upstage but still visible while the action took place at the downstage table. A window gave a glimpse of the vegetable garden which was a key plot point. It was also gratifying to see a working sink. The set was dressed by Kris Moore and Sheila Grimmant and was extremely impressive: there was an Aga-style stove, a wall-mounted plate rack, wine rack, and copper pans on a rail, all of which helped establish the feel that we were in France. On first impression, I could not understand where the body of the fridge was, but when the set was fully revealed, it was clearly in an alcove behind the kitchen, so that was fine. My only small criticism is that most of the books were clearly fake and given this was an author’s house it would have been nice to see more real ones: having just had to dress the Brontë parsonage for another production, with hundreds of period-looking books I think real books would have been better. The table and three chairs downstage offered the chance for good central grouping and the upstage library area, the Aga and another easy-chair made a natural place for others to rest if the three chairs were occupied.

Other hand-held properties by Sheila Grimmant and Georgie Palmer were all appropriate and included consumable food and pots of tea and coffee, papers, phones and a bunch of flowers. In terms of wardrobe it was all modern dress, very well-conceived by Carol Bush: André had a cardigan-and-slippers look, while Madeleine looked smarter in a more formal longer coat; both daughters sported a more youthful, fashionable look with cut-off jeans and no socks. There was also thought to the glamour of the visitor – she was the only female character in heels, along with a colourful, fashionable dress and denim jacket, which suited her role as a potential threat to the marriage. The other ‘man’ was in formal business dress. I was initially confused as to why no-one appeared to have changed clothes following one of the scene changes as they then referred to it being the next morning, but as the scene went on, and others disputed the fact that it was a new day, I think it was exactly the right decision that everyone wore the same clothes throughout as this added to the uncertainty as to whether any time had actually passed.

Lighting was by Clifton Hoyle and Nick Mogg. The play only really calls for general lighting, but the set was lit well, and there was also good light through the window. A neat trick was employed to cover the scene changes, where two strips of reasonably bright lights either side of the stage faced into the audience, making it hard to see what was going on onstage – I thought this worked very well. Sound was by James Rowles and again there was not too much to do, but what sound there was was well executed. A doorbell, and mobile phones ringing (always a tricky thing to simulate), were convincing, and the classical music used in the scene changes was appropriate – I don’t know if it was all French, although I think I recognised some Erik Satie?

Jim Markey was excellent as the taciturn writer André. He offered both stillness as he mournfully stared out of the window and frustrated rage as he felt that no-one was listening to him. This was a fantastic portrayal of a man who feels that life is going on around him – and whether it’s himself who’s passed, or his wife? As Madeleine, Suzie Major was wonderfully upbeat and was generally more even-tempered than her husband. But the argument with her daughter which culminates in a forthright instruction to go away (expletive deleted!) was a joy to watch. We were also never wholly sure, from one moment to the next, which was the one bereaved, but both conveyed that uncertainty with surety. That uncertainty also extended to their two daughters: as Anne, the more sensible one, Natalie Gordon opened the play securely and held our attention for several minutes with what was basically a monologue, as André stares off into the garden. She continued throughout offering a strong and credible performance. Francine Ross was the more childlike daughter, Élise. This was a good characterisation as she clearly portrayed the more petulant of the two sisters. At times, when standing or seated at the table, she was in profile across the stage for reasonably long periods: a slight turn towards the audience would have enabled me to appreciate more of her facial reactions.

As the mysterious female visitor, Victoria Rive was suitably alluring as the ‘other woman’ / family friend, and coped seamlessly with the requirement of swapping between these two roles depending on who she was speaking to in the scene. As ‘the Man’, Andy Hill had a wonderful timbre to his voice which contrasted to the women’s voices and he was fittingly disturbing as Elise’s new partner who, as an estate agent, may have actually been there to sell André’s house from under him?

The play is almost like a farce in that it has conversations that repeat, or go nowhere, with characters failing to make themselves understood by others, and all cast members were totally secure in playing this. As an example, in the scene with the woman from the past, it’s not totally clear whether she’s had a sexual relationship with André. Another example is when an allusion is made to a couple who appear to have had a joint suicide pact by eating poisonous mushrooms – much is made of mushrooms in the dialogue and Madeleine twice prepares them, once in a semi-repeat of an earlier scene. As a team, the actors all coped admirably with this and gave credible performances in what is an in-credible scenario. At certain times characters speak of André in the past tense, and yet at other times they speak to him as if he’s been left alone by the passing of Madeleine, and there’s the perceived idea of putting him in a nursing home. As André says, “You think people are dead, but it’s not always the case”.

Characters are seemingly ‘seen’ by others at certain times and then not at other times. As a representation of loss and dementia, it appears as if each of the characters’ memories is played out at various times, and they conflict.

John Davies’ production coped wonderfully with the uncertainty, and this was a confident realisation of the play which achieved great dramatic impact. All the characters were wonderfully naturalistic but in what is a quite unnatural play that doesn’t appear to obey the unity of time. There were some great pictures as mentioned before, utilising the full depth of the stage. While the subject matter is dark, this production did extract what humour there is: the best example being the misunderstanding of who ‘the woman’ is talking about when she reveals she had an affair which resulted in a son. The production clearly understood the intention of the work and captured the required uncertainty which is never resolved. All in all, this is a very confusing play structure – think Groundhog Day meets The Sixth Sense. And like those films, it almost makes you want to go back and see it again, to see if you can work it out better a second time around…

Andrew Lee is an actor and director who’s worked with The Company of Players, Shattered Windscreen and Hertford Dramatic and Operatic Society. Most recently he directed Polly Teale’s Brontë.