REVIEW: Strife

Minerva Theatre,

Chichester

ANYONE unfamiliar with the works of playwright John Galsworthy and witnessing the dramatic opening sequence to the new production of Strife at Chichester could be forgiven for believing it is a modern take on the genesis of the demise of the British steel industry.

Overlaid atop the breath-taking creation of a gigantic, smoulder slab of steel, are the recorded voices of British politicians stretching from the present crisis facing the plants at Port Talbot and the North of England to the post-war heyday of the manufacturing giant.

Set in 1909, here was the clash of socialism and capitalism amid the Welsh smelting heartland at a time when unions were just finding their feet and striking workmen and their families could expect no welfare if they withdrew their labour.

Was this confrontation, certainly representative of the sea-changes that were to come in the relationship between mastered and mastered, the very beginning of the end we now seem to be witnessing?

Perhaps. But Galsworthy wrote Strife in 1909 and at a time when his audiences would no doubt have found as much to be alarmed about in the rise of socialism as they would be expected to be troubled by the grasping indifference of the ruling classes.

For this week’s audience at Chichester for the opening night of this new adaptation from director Bertie Carvel, the shaking of heads and sucking of teeth was all one-sided as Galsworthy’s biting depicting of the board of the Trenartha Tinplate Works battled a striking workforce close to starvation.

The superb William Gaunt plays the Chairman of the Board, Edgar Anthony, determined to hold the line whatever the cost even to his own shareholders. Winning the fight is all that matters. Bitter, driven, seemingly incapable of compassion, Gaunt’s portrayal of the 76-year-old company founder is a masterclass in studied bile.

Ian Hughes plays the chairman’s nemesis, the men’s spokesperson David Roberts. Just as driven, he is blinded by the battle, even to the approaching death of his frail wife.

While the two protagonists circle each other those caught in the deadly game, company board and family members as well as striking men, their wives and children, struggle with themselves and each other to find a way to compromise.

To the modern ear, the battle between boardroom and picket lines seems almost commonplace after a century of industrial strife. To Galsworthy’s contemporary audience it would have seemed the stuff of nightmares.

Strife runs until September 10

Ian Murray