Democracy is an exciting play. But for the first hour or so of this final instalment of Sheffield’s Michael Frayn retrospective, it masquerades as a play that’s absorbing and informative rather than inspiring or affecting. Such a feint is fitting for a play, from 2003, about dual identities — indeed, about multiple identities. Frayn takes us into the West German coalition government of the early 1970s, where Chancellor Willy Brandt deals with backbiting colleagues and — incredible but true — a close aide who is also an East German spy. But from this masterclass in politicking, staged with style in Paul Miller’s revival, emerges an inspiring tale about how we are all a coalition of different interests and identities.
“Complexity is what the play is about,” Frayn has written, and as a slew of men in suits stalk around Simon Daw’s deep and spare set you may find all your energy taken up with decoding who’s who and what’s what. But as the actions zap from one speech to another, you see that Patrick Drury’s sonorous, invariably statesmanlike Brandt is a “peacemaker” whose gift is for bringing together competing strands, just as Frayn will do later. And as Aidan McArdle’s nerdy Gunter Guillaume insinuates himself into Brandt’s trust, he and the rest of the ten-strong male cast do a great job of acting present tense while also narrating events as if they were past tense — one of the many split identities in the show.
Only Ed Hughes as Guillaume’s spymaster stands always outside of the action. He sounds the only false notes here, working too hard to invest his role with urgency. But Frayn always keeps plenty of plates spinning. This is a talky piece that also never stops moving, as Brandt visits East Germany, goes on (effectively) sex tours, and deals with the close colleagues — David Mallinson’s Helmut Schmidt and William Hoyland’s Herbert Wehner — who are also his biggest threat.
This is a world of middle-aged men living and working without trust. So the controlling irony is that it’s the spy and his target who forge the closest bond. Both married adulterers, both are aware of how mutable identities are. The real attraction here, as the focus of Miller’s staging tightens to match the streamlining of the story, is how Frayn takes such a detailed political tale and makes something resonantly human.
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Box office: 0114-249 6000, to March 31