Idealism can do more harm than good
By Robert Tanitch - 22/12/2011
THE CHARITY THAT BEGAN AT HOME
Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond
St John Hankin (1869-1909) is a playwright who deserves to be better known, but only the Orange Tree so far seems willing to revive him. They have already had success with two of his plays, The Prodigal Son and The Cassilis Engagement.
Hankin described The Charity That Began at Home as a comedy for philanthropists and in it he gently satirizes two do-gooders, a mother and her daughter, who follow the teachings of a minister of the Church of Humanity to the letter. He preaches that “false hospitality is inviting people because you like them. True hospitality is inviting them because they’d like to be asked.”
Mother and daughter entertain in their home the most boring, rude, disagreeable and intolerable people imaginable. Their absurd altruistic principles cause a great deal of harm for themselves and their servants. In the group is a young man who was thrown out of the army for embezzlement. He falls in love with the daughter and she falls in love with him. Her mother, her aunt and the minister (who loves her) are appalled.
Charity can be taken too far.
Auriol Smith’s production has a good cast. There are particularly good performances by Paula Stockbridge as the dithering mother, Olivia Morgan as her bright-eyed daughter and by Rebecca Saire as her sister-in-law, the voice of common sense. The first two acts needed to be tightened and would benefit from some judicious cutting. However, all is redeemed after the interval when Oliver Gomm’s cynical young wastrel holds the stage.
The Orange Tree will be reviving Hankin’s one act play, The Burglar Who Failed, later in the year. I hope they will also in due course revive Hankin’s The Last of the De Mullins, thought by some to be his best play.