thu 05/12/2024

The Line, Arcola Theatre | reviews, news & interviews

The Line, Arcola Theatre

The Line, Arcola Theatre

Timberlake Wertenbaker's play about Edgar Degas is too literary and polite

Henry Goodman has intensity to burn as the artist DegasSarah Ainslie

The habit of art - a favourite topic of late, or so it would seem - gets a pummelling in The Line, a sort of Several Decades in the Atelier with Edgar (as in Degas) that would defy even Stephen Sondheim to shake a wordy and dour play into impassioned life. Henry Goodman brings his customary fervour to an assignment whose published text is dedicated to him, but Timberlake Wertenbaker's bitty drama seems like a blueprint for the TV mini-series that in different televisual times would surely lie in wait.

The habit of art - a favourite topic of late, or so it would seem - gets a pummelling in The Line, a sort of Several Decades in the Atelier with Edgar (as in Degas) that would defy even Stephen Sondheim to shake a wordy and dour play into impassioned life. Henry Goodman brings his customary fervour to an assignment whose published text is dedicated to him, but Timberlake Wertenbaker's bitty drama seems like a blueprint for the TV mini-series that in different televisual times would surely lie in wait.

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