"Closer". Pilch. Review by Josie Stern.

When Patrick Marber sat down with the Independent in 1998, he outright rejected the notion that “Closer”, which follows a quartet of strangers stretching the fabric of infidelity to its fraying edges, “is about betrayal”. This, he maintained, is but a drop in the ocean. Marber directs his actors, above all, to “love each other”. When they fall short, it is not because they are callous, but because love never obeys the neat rules we delude ourselves into prescribing.

Director Rosie Morgan-Males was under no illusions about the magnitude of her responsibility: to wade through flagrantly outrageous behaviour and emerge on the other side with something as sincere as Marber’s masterpiece. Indeed, in her own words, Morgan-Males set out to “peel back the layers and find something honest inside the mess”.

It would have been all too easy to present a stylishly shallow replica of the 2004 movie, which, for all its defects, is a study in how much a perpetually pouting Jude Law can make a person feel amidst reams of stale dialogue. Ben Brantley, notorious theatre critic-executioner extraordinaire, deemed Closer’s stint on Broadway nothing more than “a bunch of sad strangers photographed beautifully”; this was always the gamble Morgan-Males was making in approaching such an ostensibly self-indulgent piece of work.

Well, I am thrilled to announce that not only does Labyrinth Productions’ Closer not quiver in the face of such a danger, but it defies the odds of how deftly student dramatists can navigate the merciless injustices of love. Morgan-Males and her exceptional cast and crew have accomplished something I did not think possible: they have breathed new life into one of my favourite plays, unearthing unexpected purity amongst the glittering layers of melodrama.

From our very first introduction to Alice (Catherine Claire Williams-Boyle) and Dan (Vasco Faria), we learn very quickly that there is no shortage of chemistry between the actors. Williams-Boyle’s charming wit is an excellent counterpart to Faria’s devious softness; the actors are engaged in a careful and stirring dance from the very beginning, giving us just enough to know that there are monsters in both their closets, and raring for the moment they finally pounce. None of the clinical exchanges in the film is to be had here – rather, one has a hard time grappling with the fact that William-Boyle and Faria aren’t a twenty- and thirty-something couple, worn down after a near decade of hurt.

Williams-Boyle masterly slips between helplessness and quiet power, sensuality and ferocity; even knowing the story like the back of my hand, I never knew quite what to expect from her dynamic Alice. There is no doubt, too, that Fario inhabits his role with conviction. He truly comes into his own in the second half; the years of emotional turmoil have clearly taken their toll, and his descent into unhinged passion is a delightful transformation to behold. Both are also particularly magical in the hotel room scene near the end of the play. The journey from the notable “I don’t love you anymore” mic-drop moment to the couple’s hair-raising row was entirely captivating and smooth, and a huge round of applause is in order for Morgan-Males for the persuasive fight coordination.

Vita Hamilton dazzles, too, as Anna. She is razor-sharp and does a remarkable job of making the audience care for a character who, on the face of it, has the potential to be maddening or, at the very least, tiresome. There is something satisfyingly authentic in her performance. Her clipped sentences, contrasting with the meandering hysteria of Alice, hide a myriad of sentiments that only come with great care and skill. She is particularly effective when she flits between two meetings – firstly with Larry and then with Dan – set a day apart. Incredible subtlety is at work here, as the audience can tell very quickly smell the deception from her body language alone.

Robert Wolfreys as Larry is a truly special, standout performance. All dark suits and jibing remarks, and equal parts nasty and alluring, Wolfreys is a much-needed regeneration of the somewhat tired “bad-boy” trope. He is captivating throughout and rightfully does not shy away from Larry’s blatant misogyny, but equally does the unimaginable in leaving the audience dumbfounded at how they have ended up rooting for his character. He has also somehow topped his performance in Moth from back in Michaelmas; Wolfreys is certainly a name to be reckoned with in OUDS.

The staging is another jewel in Labyrinth’s “Closer”. While such a stripped-back set runs the risk of becoming glacial, it does wonders for the production, and Morgan-Males has achieved her goal in celebrating the “frank dialogue” and “emotional precision” of Marber’s script. The scene between Larry and Dan two, when they are caught in a deceitful and bawdy online exchange, is especially well done and original. Aesthetically, too, there was no trouble in discerning which world we were paying a visit; Liv Allan on costumes has done an admirable job, and I wouldn’t mind her revealing where she sourced Anna’s blazer in the Aquarium scene.

Marber described “Closer” as a play about “how people operate with the gloves off”. Morgan-Males seized this challenge and took it one step further. Not only is Labyrinth Productions’ revitalisation of the play a delightful bare-knuckled struggle between tenderness and desire, but it has done the unimaginable and made a Jude Law film no longer satisfactory.