Star performances in a fragmented play

Old Vic Theatre

In Tracy Letts’ play, eleven scenes go back and forth through a woman’s life.  The theme of the play, as explained by Sarah Crompton at WhatsOnStage, is: ‘What is the significance of an ordinary life? Are there turning points where we could engineer change or does existence just unfold with an inevitability that we barely notice?’ Questions that were not really answered, said the critics. Even if the play itself left them unsatisfied, reviewers liked Matthew Warchus‘ in-the-round production, and loved the cast, including the screen luminaries Susan Sarandon and Andrea Riseborough.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

4 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑

Aliya Al-Hassan at LondonTheatre liked what she saw: ‘Matthew Warchus has reconfigured the space to make an intimate in-the-round experience for the audience. We may see Mary from every angle, but never know the complete person; it is a clever conceit. Warchus handles the fractured timeline well, creating fluidity and really allowing the quieter scenes to breathe. It is the excellent acting that vividly brings every Mary to life, as Letts asks (but never answers) the eternal question of what is fated to happen in a life and what we can control.’

WhatsOnStage‘s Sarah Crompton found: ‘The effect is like watching fragments of a shattered vase, glued back together. The pieces don’t quite fit and the cracks start to show, but the truthfulness of the writing – and of the performances – is the way that they suggest that behaviour is not always tangential. Bad choices are made, and generational trauma is handed down. But also, things happen. Dreams die.’

The Stage’s Sam Marlowe was impressed: ‘Matthew Warchus’ production, performed by an impeccable cast led by Hollywood royalty Susan Sarandon and Andrea Riseborough, could hardly be more finely calibrated.’ She fixed on what she thought might be ‘the nub of Letts’ play: the impossibility of truly knowing another human being, the many selves we all inhabit and present to the world. It’s an elusive piece of writing that changes shape as you stare at it, wriggles away if you try to pin it down. The impact is muted, but the overall effect is disquieting. The execution is faultless.’

The i’s Fiona Mountford noted: ‘Playwright Tracy Letts offers us tantalising “fragments of a life” and leaves it to us to piece them together and fill in the gaps.’ She commented on the set: ‘The Old Vic auditorium has been strikingly reconfigured into an in-the-round setting, which adds to the thrilling sense that we are being allowed to eavesdrop on something fiercely personal, the inner workings of another person’s world.’ She praised ‘Matthew Warchus’s sensitive direction (that) points up the question that Letts floats throughout: how much agency do we really have in our own lives? Is it more or less than we think?’

‘The play is not as profound as it thinks it is’ opined Nick Curtis in The Standard ‘…But it is a subtle and elegantly constructed piece of work.’ Like many of the other critics, it was the acting opportunities that interested him most: ‘The fireworks go to a shifty, slippery Rosy McEwen and a wracked and haunted Andrea Riseborough who play the title character from her later 20s to the age of 50, as a wife, mother, adulteress, divorcee and alcoholic.’ And ‘Sarandon reappears at the end as a 59-year-old Mary Page, careworn but upbeat and absolutely radiant. Pretty amazing.’

3 stars ⭑⭑⭑

The Guardian‘s Arifa Akbar acknowledged: ‘It is beautifully directed by Matthew Warchus, who elicits magnificent performances from the ensemble. Sarandon performs with ease, assurance and total ownership of her character; Riseborough, in scraped back ponytail, is astonishing as a woman whose life has hurtled off-course. Rosy McEwen, as an unfaithful wife who feels like an actor in her own life, is a scintillating, dangerous force on stage.’ However, ‘The play raises (…) questions and then lets them fall away, unanswered.’

Time Out’s Andrjez Lukowski was delighted to see Andrea Riseborough back on stage: ‘chewing the scenery, yes, but with nuance and feeling and a devastating arsenal of facial expressions: she elevates the blank stare into art, and her delicate face acting is probably the best justification for the in-the-round set up.’

The Times’ Dominic Maxwell said Susan Sarandon is ‘so casually excellent in her three shortish scenes that you want the Old Vic to impound her passport and keep her here for an entire season.’ He loved the individual scenes but: ‘You sit waiting in vain for them to add up to something greater than the sum of their parts…Letts wants to let us join the dots for ourselves, but the end result can feel more like a writing exercise than a fully satisfying play.’

For BroadwayWorld, Laura Jones concluded it was: ‘a thoughtful and often moving exploration of a life lived. The performances from each Mary and the excellent supporting cast give the piece its heartbeat, even when the episodic structure keeps the audience slightly at bay. It is a production worth seeing for its remarkable acting and for the way it asks us to piece together, from fragments, the mysteries of an ordinary, complicated life.’

Alice Saville of The Independent noted: ‘To be a woman is to play a part, we’re told. And if all these bodies somehow fail to fit together into a single living, breathing portrait of an actual person, each still brings some brilliance of its own to this fractured story.’

Referring to The Years, Clare Allfree for the Telegraph observed: ‘it’s hard to shake the nagging feeling that we have seen this theatrical conceptualising of a woman struggling to fit inside the various pieces of her life before.’ Nevertheless, she was captured by Susan Sarandon: ‘her deceptively artless performance at once sexy, tricky, playful, effortlessly lived in.’ Even so, ‘she is, whisper it, outclassed here by Andrea Riseborough (who..) delivers a masterclass in pathetic, bravado-charged despair.’

Critics’ average rating 3.4⭑

Value rating 26 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price.)

Mary Page Marlowe can be seen at The Old Vic theatre until 1 November 2025. Click here to buy tickets direct from the theatre.

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