Event

David Hare's "The Breath of Life"

David Hare's 2002 play, The Breath of Life, a psychologically fraught meeting between two women betrayed by the same man, has its west coast premiere with veteran actors Phoebe Moyer and Susan Maeder as the wife and mistress respectively. (The roles were originated by Judi Dench and Magggie Smith in the London production). To add insult to injury, their shared husband/lover has dumped them for a younger woman, whom he follows to Seattle to start a new life.The scorned duo attempt to make peace with one another and with the facts of their shared abandonment during a 24-hour encounter on the Isle of Wight. Witty and scorching zingers pepper the encounter when the betrayed wife Frances arrives seeking closure with the mistress, Madeleine. Having recently become a successful author, Frances wants to write a book about their love triangle, much to the horror of Madeline. A recurring theme is an attack on writers, and the literary question of how stories such as theirs can best be told. As truth? Or fiction? Martin, the husband/lover is the third character in the play, and he emerges vividly through their recollections, but never appears on stage. Memory itself can betray, and the encounter stirs all kinds of remembrances and regrets for these women. Alternately vicious, mordant, and hysterically funny, the pair ultimately find a kind of reconciliation with each other and with where they now find themselves in their lives.