THE AMERICAN PLAN St James’s Theatre, SW1

Richard Greenberg has said that his play is a mixture of high comedy, social drama, melodrama and fairy tale. A rich Jewish widow (Diana Quick) has an eccentric young daughter (Emily Taafe) whom she protects, much to the daughter’s frustration. A young man (Luke-Allen Gale), holidaying at a summer resort across the lake, comes courting. Mother suspects he hasn’t any money and is after the girl’s fortune. Another young man arrives. Things get complicated. Whom can you trust when everybody is lying? I felt I was watching an adaptation of a novel by Henry James but without the irony.