Hapgood (2022)

Poster by Bryon Fear

by Tom Stoppard

Directed by Lisa Thomas

Performances: Tue 31st – Sat 4th June 2022, Old Fire Station

Introduction

Does light come in waves or particles? Experiments will show either: the experimenter can choose. ”A double agent is like a trick of the light,” Kerner the physicist tells Blair the spy catcher. “You get what you interrogate for.” Dual natures, of light and of people, are the theme of Tom Stoppard’s espionage thriller. Kerner’s secret research is being leaked to Moscow. Is Ridley the double? Or is Kerner a triple? Hapgood is the person to find out, and maybe it will need two of her.

Cast

• Hapgood - Jude Benning
• Wates - Josiah De Phoenix
• Blair - Jack King
• Kerner - Alex Johnston
• Ridley - Tom Watts
• Maggs - Rob Wallis
• Merryweather - Calla Cambrey
• Joe - Sam Roche and Franklin Warner
• Russians - Dan Brooks, Rafe Basanez, Graham Rice and Jason Salmon

Crew

• Stage Manager - Kay George
• Assistant Stage Manager - Dan Brooks
• Lighting Designer - Jason Salmon
• Sound Designer - Adam Crook
• Projection Designer - Bryon Fear
• Operator - Noah Wright, Jason Salmon (Friday)
• Set Building and Design - Mark Ireson, Graham Clements, Hans Mudlamootoo, John Winters, Dan Brooks, Dennis Fenton and members of the cast.
• Rigging - Sean Thomas
• Production photography - Phil Gammon

Reviews

Bryon Fear

How nice and refreshing it is to have a really different genre of show on at the theatre. A spy thriller! SLT's Hapgood is incredibly ambitious, almost to the point of overreaching itself - but if you're going to create interesting theatre you have to push yourself and not remain within the boundaries of being 'safe'.

Stoppard's script is extremely witty and surprisingly funny - when the play opens it's not quite clear if any of the action is supposed to be funny but you're soon reminded that you're watching Stoppard brimming with his trademark wordplay, sharp & clever, and when the jokes come, they are undeniable, and truly funny.

The plot follows the machinations of Hapgood's intelligence department which is thrown into tumult when it's suspected there is a double agent in the ranks - underpin the action with a crash course in quantum mechanics and you end up with a highly enjoyable thriller which teeters delightfully on the edge of farce.

You never get a true sense of a show when watching a dress rehearsal that is laden with complex and multiple technical layers, many of which are being test run for the first time - but I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed Lisa Thomas's production. There are some exceedingly good performances and everyone has a moment when they truly shine, though I have to mention Jack King and Alex Johnston who anchor the production and let it fly respectively.

A fun one to watch - just make sure you're paying attention!

Christine Theophilis

Really enjoyed this, and agree with Carole's review. I must say also that I wasn't expecting it to be as funny as it was. Well done all!

Jess Osorio

Congratulations to all involved in Hapgood. It was brilliant if perplexing.

Carole Coyne

Just seen an excellent production of Tom Stoppard’s Hapgood at South London Theatre - an unusual spy-thriller from the master of words and subtle humour. Fine performances from all but especially Jack King being masterful and newcomer Alex Johnson as the bubbly, enthusiastic scientist you wished you had teaching you at school. I could not fault Lisa Thomas’s direction and the set and Bryon Fear’s imaginative use of video made the many scene changes very slick. Highly recommended.

Dave Hollander

This is absolutely my kind of play and although I watched the dress rather than a fully fledged performance I can wholeheartedly recommend it! Tinker Tailor meets Prime Suspect in a 1980s spy thriller that veers from near-farce to tense interrogation to involved explanations of theoretical physics… and it’s all tied together with Stoppard’s trademark witty dialogue. Ultimately though, it’s the human connections that really matter in this tense examination of relationships on the line.

Hayley Thomas

Congratulations to Lisa and the cast and crew of Hapgood!👏👏👏 I throughly enjoyed this intriguing play! Strong performances and the thoughtful use of projection worked together really well!👏👏👏

Lily Ann Coleman

Loved it projections and performances are brilliant.

Simon Gleisner

Really enjoyed Hapgood on Tuesday. Great to see a thriller and have to try and work out what is going on. Great performances and a clever set (spot the giraffe) make it really engaging. Get yourself down to the theatre and see it - much more fun than a royal parade! Even if you aren't into spies or quantum physics there is plenty in the relationships between the characters to keep you engaged! Still tickets to be had so get booking!🎭👏

Reminiscences and Anecdotes

Hapgood - the Director's Preview

Lisa Thomas introduces Hapgood by Tom Stoppard, our upcoming show running 31 May – 4 June 2022.

Our usual opener – why did you want to direct this particular play? I was looking for a play to read with a particular group of actors with whom I had had a great experience on another play. This was a pretty good fit in terms of the gender balance of the characters and the types involved. I love spy stories and had become slightly obsessed with them, and the idea of a play that was a spy thriller – but with a female protagonist – was a really exciting prospect. Even though I had been thinking about it in an informal capacity, when it came to submissions I read it again and thought it would be fun to perform it to a larger audience. The context has changed considerably from the post-Cold War era in which I submitted it to one where following the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has become a real bogeyman again.

Why do you think it’s not one of Stoppard’s better-known plays? It is the epitome of a play where Stoppard uses science – in this case particle physics – to explain aspects of his story. A lot of early audiences apparently found the science too much and the plot overly convoluted. Stoppard himself has always championed Hapgood, although he has been prepared to edit his text to make it more accessible. The 1994 New York production used a text that was trimmed significantly from the original in 1988. I wonder too, that a play which was written just as the Cold War was ending – but is about the relationship between the West and Russia in that era – may not have seemed very relevant once the Berlin Wall had come down.

How much of the plot can you reveal? The story centres on Elizabeth Hapgood, a top spy chief in British intelligence during the late 1980s. When she discovers that she has a rogue element in her team, she needs to find a way to plug the leak and trap the traitor. Some of it is a classic spy thriller; other parts Stoppard describes through the prism of physics and it is infused with the idea of duality – of twins and the ability to be in more than one place at a time.

What’s been challenging in directing this play? It’s highly technical – there are multiple scene changes which need to be achieved with minimal time lag and fuss. There’s also lots of ‘spy business’ that needs to have at least some semblance of reality. People talk on radios and in other rooms; characters move from a swimming pool changing room to the zoo and a rugby pitch. Adam Crook, who is doing the sound design, reckons there are more sound cues than he has ever come across. The lead character has interesting and somewhat ambivalent relationships with three of the men in her team. One of these in particular has taken a lot of work to discover exactly how they relate to each other and find a way to perform that truthfully.

Tell us about the characters we’ll meet Hapgood (Jude Benning) is a classic example of a woman pulled in many directions. A spy chief in MI5, she has a brilliant career and a young son who she worries about and feels she may be failing. We meet three men with whom she works closely: Blair (Jack King) a highly experienced intelligence officer who is a mentor and a friend; Kerner (Alex Johnston), a Russian physicist whom she ‘turned’ and who now works as a spy for the British; and Ridley (Tom Watts), another agent used by Hapgood on numerous occasions but who has become increasingly difficult to control. We also meet Wates (Josiah Phoenix) a CIA agent who is exasperated with continual obfuscation from the British, Maggs (Rob Wallis), Hapgood’s imperturbable secretary; and Merryweather (Calla Cambrey) a super-keen junior agent.

See Also

Have there been other SLT productions of this play? Link to them here.

Or add anything that is related within this site. The author's page for instance or other plays with a similar theme.

External Links

• [1] - this is a podcast with Lisa Thomas and Jude Benning discussing the play.