The Horse Trade Theater Group’s new production of Mike Leigh’s 1979 drama, “Ecstasy,” is staged in the Red Room, a narrow, third-floor theater above an East Village bar, and the raucous noise downstairs grows louder through the night. It works nicely as a soundtrack to the melancholy party onstage, filled with working-class Londoners stuck in dead-end relationships, grueling jobs and sorry prospects.
Stephen Heskett in a new production of Mike Leigh’s “Ecstasy.”
Through it all, however, they celebrate — and it’s the mixture of carousing and hopelessness that makes this finely observed, naturalistic play so potentially heartbreaking. (Of the three versions I’ve seen, this was the only one where I left with dry eyes.)
Mr. Leigh, of course, is better known as a filmmaker, and his recent acclaimed “Happy-Go-Lucky,” a contender for an Oscar nomination, reveals a similarly empathetic brand of naturalism. Is there any other writer who can make you care as much for bigots and lost souls?
But “Ecstasy,” written at the dawn of the Thatcher era, is an angrier, less hopeful work, and while this production has its moments, it only occasionally taps into the depths of the play’s bleakness.
Very little happens. It’s mostly a portrait of a party, a rambling, drunken affair that seems to have the pacing of real life without the cheap twists and forced epiphanies of so many character-driven dramas. The host, Jean (Mary Monahan), a lonely garage attendant, has just finished sleeping with a married man to cope with her boredom.
Dawn (Gina LeMoine) and her husband, Mick (Brandon McCluskey), needle each other while gently bantering with an old friend, Len (Stephen Heskett), whose wife left him for a salesman.
Poor Len just can’t seem to say anything right. When he tries a joke, it comes off like an insult. He makes an offensive comment about immigrants, and the best he can do when flattering Jean about her apartment is “Aye, it’s small, but it’s compact.”
He could easily come off as a buffoon, but in the delicate performance of Mr. Heskett, Len is more than a joke. It’s a scene-stealing portrayal, but his success also reminds you of what this play could be.
Mr. Leigh is a master at finding the humor in quiet desperation, but the director Sara Laudonia too often allows charged moments to get lost in the revelry. Ms. Monahan particularly struggles with the darker shades of her character, and seems to lose focus in the emotional climax.
The final tender exchange between Jean and Len seems tacked on, a contrived coda. As the roar of the drinkers downstairs interrupts the play, it’s clear that the party is over.
