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Closer - Student Edition
By Patrick Marber, Commentary And Notes by Daniel Rosenthal
Methuen
£8.99
127 + xcii pages
Dateline: 26th March, 2007
There are several different measures of a great play. By almost any
of them, Closer has made it, or is at least well on the way to
achieving the status.
If one judges a play by the ability to remember its impact and many
details ten years after last seeing it, it is a winner. If you prefer
to note that over the years many of the best-known actors of the day
including Clive Owen, Anna Friel, Natasha Richardson, Julia Roberts,
Natalie Portman and Jude Law have taken the opportunity to star in one
of the four parts, once again it is right up there.
Two other measures of posterity are repeated productions over decades
- and only time will tell whether that happens - and an appearance on
school and college reading lists and exam syllabuses.
The publication of this new edition of Closer is proof that
Patrick Marber's play about sex and failed love is something that students
now read alongside Shakespeare and Chekhov.
One naturally asks whether it is really that good and on a reading
of the text, which takes up the bulk of this edition, it is certainly
something very special. Its appeal comes from a mixture of deep investigation
into the human condition today (well - ten years ago); and laugh out
loud comedy. The latter was greatly enhanced by the timing imbued by
Patrick Marber when he directed the play on two different stages at
the National before it went to Broadway. As many will recall, it was
also filmed by Mike Nichols in a simplified version but with a stellar
cast.
Closer is a tremendous play about four people who form two couples.
However, those couples change on a constant basis as fidelity gives
way to both lust and insecurity.
The men, Larry and Dan, are poles apart, one a reckless doctor who
suffers from class insecurity and an innate need to womanise, the other
a writer who prefers loyalty in a relationship. The women that they
meet, Anna and Alice, could be seen as their feminine equivalents with
the former a photographer who is looking for something stable, while
the much younger Alice is a stripper who believes in serendipity.
The quartet dance a kind of Quadrille as they move into and out of
love and relationships with each other, every heterosexual variation
being tried, without any long-term result.
The first half of the book, written by Daniel Rosenthal who obviously
had plenty of access to Patrick Marber, is given over to a detailed
analysis of the play, putting it into context and looking at it from
many different viewpoints.
It considers both play and film and looks at the influences on the
writer, as well as his background (he was a stand-up comedian and comedy
writer) and such matters as the time frame, the nature of identity and
the way in which the play explores chance and death.
The odds are that most purchasers of this book will feel obliged to
do so in an effort to pass their exams. They will get a pleasant surprise,
as both the play and the criticism are entertaining, with lashings of
sex as a bonus.
In addition, there is every chance that readers will get top marks
when they finally sit down to write about the play, such is the quality
and breadth of Daniel Rosenthal's work. He even offers a few sample
questions that teachers might find useful if they run out of ideas.
The only real danger is that if this is the only book of its type on
the market, then canny markers might spot common threads running through
students' work and award the A-level or degree to Rosenthal and Marber
rather than their devoted disciples.
Philip Fisher
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