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| Kathryn Walker, Margo Ann Berdeshevsky, Roberta Maxwell. |
David Hare, who
became one England’s most respected dramatists, was only 23 when Slag made its New York debut. It
presents three teachers at Brackenhurst, an upper-class girl’s school on the
skids with less than a dozen students still enrolled. The neurotic anxieties of
the three are played off against each other; two, Elise (Margo Ann
Berdeshevsky) and Ann (Kathryn Walker), appear to have lesbian tendencies,
while the third, Joanne (Roberta Maxwell), the headmistress, is a rabid feminist.
Their dialogue is often cast in long, rhetorical speeches, which sparked
charges of overwriting and verbosity.
Fortunately, the burden was lightened by numerous stingingly comic
remarks.
The critics reacted
cautiously, most feeling Hare showed promise, but considering his play vague. Clive Barnes averred that it was filled “with more ideas than his thought can
handle.” A variety of topical targets were aimed at, especially the political
state of England, the title itself suggesting the residue of the past on which
the nation was standing.
Edith Oliver laughed
at Hare’s “eccentric notions, . . . funny lines, [and] wry outlook.” Walter
Kerr may have found Slag “quite the
dullest evening in town,” but Harold Clurman said, “the impression made,
besides that of political muddle, is one of frenzy, verbose confusion of mind
and spirit, a considerable gift for acid humor, and above all, roiling
impotence.”
Canadian-born Roberta Maxwell got
top honors in this well-acted production. Barnes enthused, “Such a good
actress, restrained when she could have been strident, impassioned when she
could have been petulant, the shining Miss Maxwell is a joy in a role that
could have been written for her.” Her performance was honored with a Drama Desk
Award.
