PASSION PLAY Duke of York’s Theatre

A wife discovers her husband is having an affair with a widow who is no older than their daughter and is absolutely devastated. What gives Peter Nichols’s 1981 play its originality and raison d’etre is its construction. The couple’s alter egos appear on the stage with them. The audience is thus able to hear what they say out loud and what they are thinking at the same time, quadrupling its highly strung impact. Zoe Wanamaker and Owen Teale play the couple. Samantha Bond and Oliver Cotton play the alter egos. Annabel Scholey plays the mistress, an erotic dream, a fantasy femme fatale cliché. The wit is savage and sour. The anguish is painfully real. The action is punctuated by loud bursts of religious music. David Leveaux directs and the actors give strong, emotionally charged performances.