Chocks away! Wartime theatre's testing it wings this summer. After a lukewarm reception to Jack Absolute Flying Again, the throwback comedy of manners at the National Theatre, audiences might be eyeing Mrs Roosevelt's promise to take to the skies with a dreaded sense of déjà vu.
The pre-flight nerves are unfounded. Like Jack Absolute, Alison Skilbeck's one-women show is sure to be a crowd pleaser, but that's where the similarities end. Mrs Roosevelt Flies to London may well be flying again in this well-research, Offie-winning reprisal, however Skilbeck's one-woman play is less interested in nostalgia and more interested in a vision of the future as seen through the eyes of Eleanor Roosevelt during the Second World War.
Focusing on a particular trip to Britain in October, 1942, we learn of Eleanor’s life as First Lady, of her loves and hopes as well as her childhood in Wimbledon, through a series of flashbacks and interlocking stories. It’s a thoughtful character study of a women of letters who was ahead of her time. In her speeches she stresses the need to ‘win the peace’ not just the war and prepare for a society where we all are born equal, where we all can work and live in dignity. It’s an interesting foil to the new ‘spirit of the nation’ rhetoric we hear today.
Roosevelt is complimentary of the British people and critical of its institutions. We encounter stories of remarkable public duty, of air raid shelters and local heroism; women’s newfound role in working society; political gossip and table talk. Churchill, a friend of her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt, comes off as a good-humoured if occasionally tempestuous foil. Eleanor disapproves of his imperialist fervour and spars with him during a visit to No. 10. Skilbeck juggles between multiple roles, deftly spinning several plates of dialogue in a single scene. She makes it look easy, her casual dexterity concealing the tricky balancing act the script demands.
And the script is demanding. Often packed with detail, some scenes are bloated for having swallowed the whole history book – the speeches, the letters, the previously unseen diary entries. Occasionally the minutiae distract from the thrust of the story, though I expect many will enjoy the play more for its faithfulness, particularly where it digests its subject well-enough to speculate what happened behind closed doors. These moments of supposition have a studied magic to them as Skilbeck is gifted the freedom to explore between the lines.
Truman called Eleanor Roosevelt the ‘First Lady of the World’. It’s a generous moniker but not undeserved one. She became the first US Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly and played an instrumental role in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human rights. The play captures this sense of ambition and hope.
Gently captivating, then, Mrs Roosevelt Flies to London has the gleam of a decommissioned spitfire restored for one final journey. And Skilbeck makes for a steady pilot in this insightful show about a remarkable woman.
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