Playwright Alexi Kaye Campbell zones in on Eliot’s early domestic life with her father in their Warwickshire home – the play is named after their house Bird Grove – before she began writing.
At the helm is Elizabeth Dulau as Eliot who brings a captivating fortitude to the role.
The opening scenes are surprising in tone: a 19th century comedy of manners featuring characters who verge on caricature and ‘The Woman Question’ with society’s reluctance to grant women educational or professional equality its focus.
In a stuffy drawing-room, Eliot entertains her liberal-minded neighbours the Brays, Cara [Rebecca Scroggs] and Charles [Tom Espiner], along with the French mesmerist Monsieur Lafontaine [James Staddon].
Eliot lies prostrate on an armchair being ‘cured’ of headaches by Lafontaine, when hapless suitor, Horace Garfield [a fictitious character, played with gusto by Jonnie Broadbent], arrives.
Eliot’s conservative brother [Jolyon Coy] favours the match but her straight-talking, land agent father [Game of Thrones’ Owen Teale, endearingly gruff] cuts through social pretentions, declaring Garfield may as well propose to some horses.
Sarah Woodward, as repressed houseguest Maria, brings an enjoyable froideur to the mix.
Elizabeth Dulau as Mary Ann Evans in Bird Grove at Hampstead Theatre (Image: Johan Persson)
What unfolds is essentially a drama about a mutually doting father and daughter; a relationship subsequently riven by Eliot’s rejection of religion.
As positions become insurmountable, Kaye’s writing becomes a tad laboured and debate driven. The tone shifts again in the final stretch as Eliot deals with the pain of her father’s death and his unjust will.
The staging is exquisite. Sarah Beaton’s flexible set uses a revolve stage with minimal furniture and a backdrop suggesting a window and seasonal changes through washes of delicate lighting.
The repeated use of a ghostly blue is deployed to conjure the characters’ social suffocation.
Dialogue is oft-times brilliantly cadenced so it’s odd when overstatement about creative desires surfaces: ‘I am determined’ or ‘I must read,’ decrees Eliot.
Director Anna Ledwich binds together competing elements with pacing that’s precise and entertaining.
But it’s the quiet pain of the enduring love between Eliot and her father that lingers.
Bird Grove runs at Hampstead Theatre until March 21.
