The pleasures of A Delicate Balance, Edward Albee's 1967 Pulitzer-winning play, are close to torment. If, by the end, you are not longing for freedom, the actors have not done their job. The idea is that one should suffer and then mutiny against the semi-absurd anguish underlying the characters' bourgeois lives. This challenging play – not for amateurs or the fainthearted – scrutinises a prosperous east coast family to see what is poisoning its blood and, extrapolating from this, considers the state of the American nation.
James Macdonald's unerring revival has a top-notch cast to showcase Albee's lines. And one is reminded that his gift is for making social discourse a vehicle for chaos (one feels the influence of Tennessee Williams and Noel Coward). His "delicate balance" is ironic – neither delicacy nor balance being the family's forte. But it is the greatest of treats to see Imelda Staunton and Penelope Wilton as its unbalanced and often indelicate sisters.
Staunton's Claire is a tiny, accordion-playing alcoholic who seems to have a bad smell under her nose and a bitter taste in her mouth. When drunk, she is queenly but, the morning after, is reduced to a smudge. Wilton, as the more sober Agnes, shows self-control as a trap. She is a model of cosmetic decorum, free-range smiles and desolation.Tim Pigott-Smith is remarkable as Tobias, the risk-averse yet unravelling man of the house. Lucy Cohu is tremendous as their glamorous, much-married, regressive daughter and Edna (Diana Hardcastle) and Harry (Ian McElhinney) support – or superbly undermine – as old friends who, absurdly and alarmingly, move in uninvited, claiming to be frightened. All three acts take place in an opulent, repellent sitting room (designer Laura Hopkins) furnished with pompous leather-bound books, a Chesterfield and formal flower arrangements. It is all show – perfect for a play that asks us to accept that there can't be any place less sweet than home.
