The National Theatre of Great Britain's production of J. B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls at the Wallis Annenberg Center for Performing Arts. (Photo by Mark Douet)
The National Theatre of Great Britain’s production of J. B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls at the Wallis Annenberg Center for Performing Arts. (Photo by Mark Douet)

An Inspector Calls

Reviewed by Terry Morgan
Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts
Through February 10

RECOMMENDED

When J. B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls premiered in 1945, its vivid dissection of the British social class system in the guise of an Agatha Christie–style mystery was appreciated as a modern classic. Nonetheless, in the following decades its drawing-room play format fell out of favor amidst a tide of naturalism. Director Stephen Daldry’s award-winning 1992 revival successfully reconfigured the show, with striking visuals and staging to match the conceptual audacity of the piece. The new revival of Daldry’s landmark National Theatre of Great Britain production is currently playing at the Wallis Annenberg Center, and it’s superb — if anything, more resonant now, in its cry for societal empathy, than it was in 1945.

In April 1912, in the small British industrial town of Brumley, factory owner and local magnate Arthur Birling (Jeff Harmer) and his wife Sybil (Christine Kavanagh) are having an engagement party for their daughter Sheila (Lianne Harvey). Her fiancé, Gerald Croft (Andrew Macklin), is the son of Birling’s main business competitor, and is seen as a good match. Sheila’s brother Eric (Hamish Riddle), cheerfully drunk, is also in attendance. The celebrations are cut short, however, when an unexpected visitor interrupts the party — an Inspector Goole (Liam Brennan), who has questions for them all concerning a young woman’s suicide.

Harmer is terrific as the blustering, bullying Arthur, a man who genuinely values profit above all and who loudly derides the concept of caring for anyone other than himself or his family. Kavanagh is similarly great as Sybil, projecting an imperious hauteur that maximizes the comedic impact of her pronouncements. Harvey is delightful as Sheila, the previously oblivious daughter who ultimately accepts responsibility for her actions; however, Riddle’s performance, while good, seems a bit less forceful than it might be. Macklin is very effective as the arrogant Gerald, who uses his entitlement to try to make trouble go away. But it is Brennan who is the heart of the show — excellent in a slow-burn performance that finally explodes into righteous fury.

Daldry’s ingenious reimagining of this drama is still dazzling, from the Birling home set that opens like a dollhouse to the use of brilliant visual tableaux (such as townspeople, in shadow, standing en masse in silent judgment of the family from across the stage). The opening of the production is one of the most iconic in modern theatre, the curtain rising to the sound of sirens and urgent music, the big building revealed behind a wash of rain across the stage like the bow of a ship that has crashed into the cratered street.

[Spoilers follow.] The surprise of Priestley’s powerful play is that it isn’t really a mystery at all — it’s a moral drama about the connectedness of the world, and how one thoughtless or selfless action can ruin a life or many lives. If this were a Christie mystery, it would be Murder on the Orient Express — they all did it. It’s an impassioned entreaty for the powerful to have compassion for the less powerful, but of course, human nature being what it is, not all the characters change. When most of the people in the story feel that they have been caught and proved guilty, they repent and act more human, but when they think they’ve gotten away with their crimes, their old habits of greed and the desire for power return. “The point is,” says a discouraged Sheila concerning her parents, “you don’t seem to have learned anything.” [Spoilers end.]

In today’s era of open corruption at the highest levels of government and business, the themes of An Inspector Calls are distressingly relevant. That’s one good reason to see the show, but the main one is that this production is a stunner on every level, and a welcome revival indeed.

 

Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, 9390 S. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills; Tues.-Fri., 7:30 p.m.; Sat., 2 p.m. & 7:30 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m. & 7 p.m.; through Feb. 10. www.TheWallis.org/Inspector. Running time: approximately one hour and 45 minutes, with no intermission.