January 6, 1986: Gems, Camille
Comedy Theatre
To every age its own Camille. This one is as romantic as ever, and is full of malaise de vie (the French must have such a phrase; if not, they should). At the end of this version, the bereaved husband whom Armand meets in the cemetery at the grave of Marguerite, and to whom he tells the sad story of his life, comments, “We are the sum of our circumstances, and of our past,” a fatalism not exactly new to the subject. At the same time, it’s clear that it is an inhumane society, a loveless society whose motto is the motto of Armand’s father — “Land, and blood — what else is there of continuity in the chaos of life?” That view proves the stronger and wins out over Armand’s naive true love for Marguerite and her desire to live — “Make me live, Armand, make me live!” But, alas, there is that ominous cough, which we hear for the first time in Act I (just as in Dumas’s original play, which he made from his own original novel, and given an unending new life as the libretto for La Traviata). It is the sure symbol of fated mischance. Gems is true not only to the spirit of the original but to the accidentals as well. Even the fatefulness is period. And yet, and yet . . . At the very end, Gaston de Maurieux, the bereaved husband, is given a card by the madame — sorry, the arranger of galas, etc., Clémence; and she says, “You need a little pleasure. Come and see me.” And as the lights go down she holds the card at arm’s length and reflects, and considers . . . And so we know that the inevitability is really the interior one: that human beings will be human beings. This is no veiled argument for social reform, nor a plea for early recognition and treatment of tuberculosis. Marguerite dies because that’s the way it is. Thus the legend on a black coffee mug for sale in a department store in Amherst, Massachusetts. Thus the argument of the play.
The performances, generally very, very fine, particularly Frances Barber as Marguerite, who has a slightly hoarse voice and more than slightly coarse manner that is right for the part and, one suspects, obligatory for late twentieth-century sentimental characters dumped on by fate. Armand is her match in sheer boorishness, but then we see that this is actually antisocial anger at an instinctive level; predictably, it wins the heart of Marguerite, who is not your run-of-the-park mercenary harlot, but a woman of almost animal passion, psychically improvident, in a true twentieth-century analogy to the economically improvident Marguerite, her predecessor. There is a wonderful first-night scene in which both tell all, and make love with great zest and abandonment, and seal their fates. Beautifully played, beautifully timed.
This is very competent theatre, very ably directed by Ron Daniels, in the service of a play that tells us what we are supposed to think we are, if we are really up on late twentieth-century mores (viz., the summary: “We are the sum of our circumstances, and of