The Royal Court Theatre presents

The Sweetest Swing in Baseball ( Archived )

By Rebecca Gilman

25 March - 15 May 2004

Jerwood Theatre Downstairs

“That’s like a moment of hope to me. When everything’s new. Waiting to run out there and start the game.”

Dana was the toast of the art world – a hot property. After her latest exhibition bombs, she is admitted to a psychiatric hospital. It might be the safest place for her but her insurance will only pay for ten days. As unlikely friendships and strange alliances develop, Dana draws on the inspiration of American baseball star Darryl Strawberry – he had the sweetest swing.

Rebecca Gilman previous plays for the Royal Court are BOY GETS GIRL, SPINNING INTO BUTTER and THE GLORY OF LIVING – winner of the 1999 George Devine and Evening Standard Awards for Most Promising Playwright.

Cast: Gillian Anderson, Nancy Crane, Demetri Goritsas, Kate Harper, John Sharian.

Design: Hildegard Bechtler, Lighting: Howard Harrison, Sound: Ian Dickinson, Composer: Peter Salem.

The play runs at approximately 2 hours and 10 minutes with a 15 minute interval.

Reviews

From L to R: Gillian Anderson, John Sharian.

Photos: Hugo Glendinning

Anderson’s Dana Fielding is a fashionable young artist for whom the pressures and expectations of constant creativity prove too much. After a particularly ill-received solo show, she slits her wrists and ends up in a mental institution. There, befriended by a recovering alcoholic and a self-proclaimed psychopath, she finally finds both the time and the mental space to touch up the damaged canvas of her life.

Two hours’ worth of playing time in Ian Rickson’s chic, stripped-down production sees Anderson leave the stage once, and, to her immense credit, she is missed even then.

When we first encounter her, Dana is a women desperately trying to hold it all in, because the consequences of letting it all out would be cataclysmic. Anderson, with her brittle gestures, staring eyes and suppressed tears, perfectly conveys the scarcely hidden panic of the depressive. Yet when this continues in hospital, when Dana’s hunted look returns with the news that her insurance policy will shortly stop paying for treatment, the suspicion is that we are in for a one-note performance.

What prevents this is Dana’s desperate attempt to prolong her stay in the hospital’s cocoon by playing mad and imitating disgraced baseball legend Darryl Strawberry, whose book on recovery she reads. This swaggering alter ego frees up Anderson to revel in macho posturing and openings for humour.

This venue has played host to three previous plays by the multi-award winning Gilman, which were notable for being strongly issue-lead. Her theme here is the predicament of the artist, whose months of solitary work end with a very public and potentially damaging adjudication Sweetest Swing’s very strength is the fact that the issue produces such a sympathetically human and fallible character.

Four actors play all the other parts on Hildegard Bechtlers’ minimalist set, whose white walls create the forbidding atmosphere of a modish gallery. Demetri Goritsas is all sympathy as fellow inmate Michael, while Nancy Crane’s gallery owner, Rhonda, is a monster in fine tailoring. Yet there can be no denying what this particular night is for: the triumph of Gillian Anderson.

Fiona Mountford, EVENING STANDARD, 1 April 04

What gives Ian Rickson’s production emotional drive…is Anderson’s astonishing performance

Michael Billington, THE GUARDIAN, 1 April 04

One of the best productions of the year to date

Kate Basset, THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY, 3 April 04

Gillian Anderson is a magnetic presence at the Royal Court

Susannah Clapp, THE OBSERVER, 3 April 04