Harry Clarke, the winner by lying of TV’s reality show The Traitors, was at the Ambassadors Theatre last night, but it wasn’t him who had brought out a packed house but Broadway and screen actor Billy Crudup making his West End and UK debut playing another liar pretending to be someone of the same name.
Alone on a wooden deck with just a wooden deckchair and side table with blue sea behind him stretching to the horizon, he delivers an 80-minute solo show that begins with him telling us, “I could always do an immaculate English accent.” This isn’t Harry; it is Philip Brugglestein from South Bend, Indiana talking the strangulated tones of the English upper class of yesteryear and telling us how, after his father died, he discovered a video of his eight-year-old self suddenly speaking with an estuary accent and inventing a new persona.
With money inherited from the homophobe dad who gave him a tough time, Philip moved to New York and one day found himself following a man whom he saw in the street. He trails him across town to a café where he listens in to his phone conversation. At the theatre some time later, he finds himself across the aisle from the same man. He recognises Philip but can’t place him and begins a conversation. To avoid admitting why they think they know each other, Philip finds himself speaking in the Estuary accent of Harry and begins inventing things.
This escalates into an imposture that takes in not only this man, wealthy alcoholic and addict Mark Schmidt, but his whole family, in a tale that sees “Harry” inventing a history that fascinates them, especially his claim to have been on singer Sade’s tour team.
Surely he is going to be found out, especially after his relationships with Mark and Mark’s mother and sister all become physical. In some ways it is preposterous, but Philip isn’t a conman with a plan, he just seems to go along with the flow.
David Cale’s script doesn’t say much about Philip’s real life and motivation: it is as though his father’s disapproval has left him not knowing who he is, but it does provide the material for a virtuoso performance as Billy Crudup tells the story. He starts off as a twitchy Philip, words spilling out in a neurotically high-pitched voice and as his narration races on, briefly becoming all the other characters. There must be a dozen more on top of the Schmidts.
Harry’s invention is so outrageously improbable that it almost has to be real—what else will he get away with? That, and the intensity of Crudup’s performance, are what hold you.
Leigh Silverman’s direction is subtilely effective. A couple of times, the background darkens and Alan C Edwards’s lighting narrows in on a corner for a scene in a gay bar or other close location; the obviously dramatic is avoided, effects are achieved without the means being noticed.
You could see Harry as Philip’s way of allowing himself to be the person he had to repress when under his father’s eye, but rather than a play of psychological exploration, Harry Clarke is a vehicle for polished performance.