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“A Lady of Letters”
Posted by Gail M. Burns - August 2010
Leda Hodgson as Miss Irene Ruddock in Alan Bennett’s “A Lady of Letters.” Photo: Christopher Baines.
If you live near or are passing through the Copake area around 4 pm on August 27 or 28 or September 4 or 5, swing by the Church of St. John in the Wilderness on Rt. 344 in Copake Falls and catch Leda Hodgson in Alan Bennett’s A Lady of Letters. Everything about it is tiny and perfect – a truly delightful, if too brief, entertainment.
A Lady of Letters is one of the monologues Bennett wrote for his popular Talking Heads BBC TV series in 1987. There are a dozen monologues in the series, which ran for two seasons and has been wildly successful in every conceivable media format – TV, radio, stage, and is one of the best-selling audio book releases of all time. Last year Hodgson appeared in Copake in another of the Talking Heads monologues Bed Among the Lentils, which I am now sorry that I missed, and my burning question for Taconic Stage Company Artistic Director and Producer Carl Ritchie, Director Colin Wakefield, and Hodgson is: Why do these one at a time? Two would be very nice – with an intermission in between to give Hodgson a rest – and would give people a better reason to get in their cars and come.
Like most of the Talking Heads pieces, A Lady of Letters concerns a woman (only two of the monologues are for men) and deals with Bennett’s recurring themes of death, illness, guilt and isolation. Here Miss Irene Ruddock, single and alone since the death of her mother, spends her days watching the neighbors out the window and writing letters of complaint. This is apparently the only way she really communicates with the outside world, and it does not bring her satisfaction. As the play progresses it becomes more and more apparent that Miss Ruddock’s missives are doing more harm than good and attracting the attention of the police and social service agencies. The upshot of this trouble provides Irene with an unexpected new lease on life.
Hodgson is genuinely British (Hooray! No bad fake accent!) and knows the world in which Irene lives – social welfare, race relations, and constabulary functions are quite different in the U.K. than they are in the states – and she plays her misery with the proverbial stiff upper lip and dogged determination. She and Wakefield manage the transition from the uptight tweedy world of Irene’s lonely flat to the more social surroundings in which she finds herself in the end with subtlty, and the happy ending gives Hodgson a chance to show her lovely smile.
Joseph Sledz has rigged up effective theatrical lighting that is not too intrusive in the tiny Episcopal church of St. John in the Wilderness. I was slightly put off by having the stage crew, in the person of Sam Spragis, places so obviously in the pulpit running the light and sound board however. Was there no way to place him further back or off to the side in one of the pews>
St. John in the Wilderness was built in 1852 by famed British gothic revival architect, Richard Upjohn, who also built Trinity Church down in the financial district of in New York City. The sanctuary provides the perfect setting for this bijou piece of theatre. If the church were smart they would quickly print up a sheet of information about the history of the congregation and the building to be handed out with the programs (or should I say programmes since we are being so British!) I am sure there are theatre-goers vacationing in the area would enjoy coming to Sunday worship as well.
A Lady of Letters is presented by the Taconic Stage Company in association with the London based Theatre Maketa, which sends Hodgson out on their Theatre Truck performing Nick Kidd’s Talking, Talking Heads a play within a play about an actress tackling a production of Bed Among The Lentils. I believe Ritchie brought that to Copake a few years back under the auspices of the currently dormant Copake Theatre Company. I hope you were there because I don’t know where I was!
A Lady of Letters is performed August 21, 22, 28 & 29 and September 4 & 5 at 4 p.m. in the sanctuary of the Church of St. John in the Wilderness, 261 Route 344 in Copake Fall, NY. Tickets are $15. For reservations call (518) 325-1234; more information at www.TaconicStage.com.
Sadly, at just 40 minutes in length, A Lady of Letters is really to short to be worth a special trip if you live far away, but if you are determined to see it, come on a Saturday and stay around to catch her again as Sibyl in Private Lives at the Light House Restaurant and Marina on Copake Lake – dinner at 7 p.m., show at 8.