MAP OF THE HEART

Wed 23 - Sat 26 March 1994 at 7.45pm
Performed at Northampton College Arts Centre, St Gregory's Road, Northampton

Photo gallery

Very few performances this year will be as good or as strong as Masque Theatre's Map
of the Heart.

Written by William Nicholson, the group gives an excellent portrayal of the conflicts induced by concepts of loyalty, honesty, duty and love.

The play is the story of a doctor (Albie Steadman) on a medical mission to a disease ridden and civil wartorn third world country, but before leaving he decides to end his long standing and complacent marriage.

Duncan Eaton as Albie Steadman gives a truly professional and stirring performance of a man with changing expectations as he leaves for the three month trip to Sudan with the woman he loves, but leaves behind his wife.

Both women have strong but different feetings for the man and they are tested when he is taken as a political hostage.

The play deals with a lot of problem issues particularty strong in the Eighties and Nineties and and runs until Saturday.

The Masque Theatre’s latest production left many people in the audience feeling rather unsettled.

A Map of the Heart, staged at the Northampton Arts Centre last week, challenged the audience over whether or not they were entirely happy with the way they were leading their lives.

The plot centres around Albie Steadman, a respectable, conservative, if slightly boring, middle-aged doctor going through the male menopause.

He has a nice comfortable home, a stable marriage and a teenage daughter, but feels that he needs more. '

He decides to go on a mission to Africa, starts an affair with Mary Hanlon, the doctor leading the expedition, and is then kidnapped.

While he is away his wife finds out he is having an affair.

The rather far-fetched plot is used as a backdrop against which William Nicholson, who also wrote Shadowlands currently showing at the cinema, examines human relationships.

There is an ongoing battle between marriage and love, or love against a sense of duty and loyalty.

In the end we are left unsure whether Albie is any longer in control of himself, he seems to have a stronger idea of what he doesn’t want than want he does want.