Review: Visit From An Unknown Woman, Hampstead Theatre - Mystery and chemistry
13/07/2024
It's curious that the play description on the Hampstead Theatre website for Visit From An Unknown Woman focuses on the male character, Stefan, played by James Corrigan, while the story firmly revolves around the mysterious Marianne (Natalie Simpson).
Based on a short story by Stefan Zweig and adapted for the stage by Christopher Hampton, the 1930s Vienna-set play opens with Stefan arriving at his sparse apartment with a woman he's just picked up at a nightclub.
Or at least he thinks he just picked her up. Marianne, it seems, is more familiar with Stefan than he is with her. The clue is in the younger version of Marianne (Jessie Gattward), who haunts the edges of the stage.
The source short story is a letter Marianne writes to Stefan, a successful novelist and her former neighbour.
In the play, she has the majority of the dialogue, which means that Marianne becomes the main conduit through which we learn about Stefan and how her life is linked to his.
A childhood crush on him has developed into an obsession in adult life. She's been a keen observer/stalker of him ever since, to the point where she understands him probably better than he understands himself.
As Marianne, Natalie Simpson is flirtatious, knowing and occasionally arch. Even while telling her story, she retains an air of mystery with glimpses of pent-up emotion—a hint of anger, a hint of frustration.
James Corrigan's Stefan oozes charm as the man who tends to love and leave the women he picks up.
His reaction to Marianne's story and her observations of his life is physical rather than verbal. He is visibly floored by what she reveals. Regret for the life lived or life not lived?
What else he reveals about himself is mainly in conversations with his butler (Nigel Hastings) - the rise of the Nazis and how the growing antisemitism impacts him as a Jewish writer. But that narrative intersects little with his and Marianne's relationship other than to initiate spells away to escape and work.
Despite the great performances—there is brilliant chemistry between the leads—this play doesn't quite succeed in breaking free of its epistolary source material.
Marianne's revelation retains an air of mystery, but personifying Stefan in the play leaves too much space for a more profound exchange between the two characters.
It left questions about Marianne's motivations - was it a clever form of revenge?
As a drama about stalkerish obsession, it is an interesting piece, but it feels like there is more to mine in the story.
I'm giving it ⭐️⭐️⭐️ and a half.
Visit From An Unknown Woman, Hampstead Theatre
Based on a short story by Stefan Zweig and adapted by Christopher Hampton
Directed by Chelsea Walker
Starring Natalie Simpson and James Corrigan
Running time 70 minutes without an interval.
Booking until 27 July; for more details visit the Hampstead Theatre website.
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