The Misanthrope at the National Theatre in London review: Sandra Oh is iconic as a furious writer on the edge

It makes this writer feel slightly sick, if perversely thrilled, to imagine how much furious, feted writer Alice, the deliciously abrasive main character in the National Theatre’s The Misanthrope, would hate not only this overlong sentence, but also this rushed review, not to mention the sorry and ever-dwindling state of journalism, criticism and writing full stop in a world where short-form video is threatening the very act of reading itself. 

Being basic, Attitude has not read the original 1666 French comedy by Molière on which this is based, nor seen a faithful retelling of it. Still, we’d hedge a misinformed bet that director Martin Crimp’s interpretation has very little in common with the original (“anyone could do that!” the ignoramus in us wants to declare) and instead reaches for modern relevance. Tired references to vaping and bright orange world leaders aside, he often achieves it. 

The lovably angry Alice is played in top gear by a wildly expressive Sandra Oh, who compels with mammoth diatribes against fakery in all its forms. Bitter though they are, her soliloquies are elegantly-worded and thought-provoking throughout. 

Faced with calls to apologise for past problematic quotes, Alice stubbornly digs her heels. The war on her mind is pulled to further extremes by the potentially cleansing power of her love for movie star boyfriend Simon, played with rakish magnetism by Tom Mison. But her cynicism eventually threatens to consume that as well, although the writing smartly declines to clarify whether her distrust of Simon is well-placed. The ambiguity here is maddening and heartbreaking. 

In other hands, Alice might be an exhausting caricature, but Grey’s Anatomy star Oh brings splashes of theatrical humour and transcendent warmth that soften this brittle character. These moments of relief are mostly brought about by the disarming presence of her long-suffering gay bestie John, played with adorable kindness by Paul Chahidi. Another winning cast member is Rina Fatania, who is a scream as a gratingly eccentric, Edina Monsoon-coded publicist to the recently sober Stefan.

That said, whenever the focus is not on Oh, the narrative pinballs confusingly around an overstuffed cast. A sizeable blunder in misaligned lighting and set rotation early on was another issue. And while Alice’s sumptuous taste in clothes and interior design lend the stage the visual appeal of prestige TV, this stylish spell is abruptly broken by a distracting final scene that, out of nowhere, descends into camp surrealism, muddying a powerful point about mental health. 

Still, as Alice disappears trepidatiously into dry ice, more isolated in her pain than ever, the vital need for depressed people to be granted grace is palpable. Alice’s misanthropy, one suspects, is less about her hatred of humanity than the entirely forgivable affliction of hating herself.

The Misanthrope is playing now at London’s National Theatre.