Critical Overview
For the most part, critics in Hare’s native Britain recognized The Secret Rapture as a clever attempt at a modern tragedy, set squarely against the social and economic impact of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s decade-long term of office in the 1980s. They generally praised the work for both its political commentary and its intimate, personal storytelling.
Writing for the Sunday Times just after the play opened in London, John Peter declared, ‘‘Hare has written one of the best English plays since the war and established himself as the finest British dramatist of his generation. The Secret Rapture is a family play; it is also the first major play to judge the England of the 1980s in terms that are both human and humane.’’
In the Observer, Michael Ratcliffe observed, ‘‘Hare’s painful, witty, and moving new play The Secret Rapture is a morality of modern behavior in which the people who have all the answers face, buy out, and destroy the people who thought there were no questions to ask.’’
However, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, American critics found less to understand and like about the play. In the New Republic, reviewer Robert Brustein complained, ‘‘The only thing I found provocative about The Secret Rapture, David Hare’s new play at the Ethel Barrymore, is its title.’’ While British reviewers appreciated the way Hare infused personal tragedy with political commentary, Brustein complained that the playwright’s political agenda did more harm than good. He felt that the characters lacked depth and that they ‘‘exist primarily as symbolic reflections on life and character in Margaret Thatcher’s England.’’
Similarly, Mimi Kramer in the New Yorker wrote, ‘‘On the face of it, Hare’s theme seems to be family relations; unfortunately, he approaches his subject so complacently as to make a mockery of character and human experience. The people who inhabit his play are more than just caricatures; they’re political stereotypes.’’
Whether they liked or disliked the play, both British and American critics seemed particularly intrigued, and sometimes troubled, by the character, and the contradictions, of Isobel. As Hare himself declared, with Isobel he set out to create a truly virtuous heroine in the midst of societal corruption and evil. But according to some critics, Isobel’s virtue did not generate the sympathy required of a central tragic character.
In Plays International, John Russell Taylor suggested, ‘‘Some are certain that Isobel is a saint, a wholly good woman beleaguered by a naughty world. But she would seem to lack the ruthlessness of the real saint. Most of what she does she does from cowardice and the inability to resist.’’
Gerald Weales, writing for Commonweal, noted, ‘‘However tantalizing as a character, Isobel never achieves the force, the presence of those who surround her. Her desire to withdraw, to find a quiet place . . . and the restraint which she brings to even her most assertive gestures make her a character for whom action is reaction. For this reason, a distance remains between Isobel and her family, her lover and, unfortunately, the audience.’’
Kramer simply found Isobel boring. ‘‘The central character of The Secret Rapture,’’ she wrote, ‘‘the terminally good Isobel, seems a woman af- flicted by a congenital inability to say anything interesting about anyone. She is surrounded by curious enough people. . . . But Isobel can’t seem to pass judgment on any of them.’’
One fascinating and unique critical issue arose when the play appeared in New York for the first time. In London, The Secret Rapture had been directed at the National Theatre by Howard Davies,...
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but Hare himself chose to come to America to direct the Broadway version. Frank Rich, the well-knownNew York Times critic, had seen the play in London under Davies’s direction and praised it. However, his review of Hare’s work in New York was scathing. ‘‘Mr. Hare, serving as his play’s director for its Broadway premiere at the Barrymore, is his own worst enemy,’’ Rich declared. He found fault with Hare’s new casting, the revised set design, and the slow pace and monotonous tones of the actors. He ended his review by remarking, ‘‘I don’t understand how a dramatist so deep in human stuff could allow so pallid an imitation of life to represent his play on a Broadway stage.’’
Ultimately, the production only ran for nineteen previews and twelve performances. Hare was so angered by Rich’s review that he sent him a harsh letter, complaining that his column had closed the play and that Rich was power-hungry and irresponsible. Rich responded that his job as a reviewer was to tell the truth as he saw it to his readers. The very public debate between the artist and his critic raised some important questions about theatrical criticism in New York, where the New York Times reviewer, whoever he happened to be, certainly did wield a great deal of power. In a climate where fewer and fewer new plays were making it to Broadway, was it the responsibility of reviewers to criticize them in such a way that audiences would still attend? Or should they remain true to their opinions, however harsh they may be, and report only what they believe, regardless of the financial consequences? The issue has still not been resolved, and a bad review in the Times can still close a production within a few performances of opening night.