Were London Critics Pleased by Kristin Scott Thomas in As You Desire Me?

Oscar-nominated actress Kristin Scott Thomas has returned to the West End stage. She is currently starring in Luigi Pirandello's As You Desire Me. The production, directed by Jonathan Kent, opened at the Playhouse Theatre on October 27. Did critics desire more from the mounting?

Here is a sampling of what they had to say:

Benedict Nightingale of The London Times: "Only occasionally does Thomas embrace the darkness of a woman who has become a cabaret singer in a seedy Berlin nightclub, is shacked up with a writer she openly loathes, and perhaps was abducted by soldiers invading her native Italy and gang-raped all the way back to Germany. When we meet her she is wayward, mocking, coolly sensuous and offhandedly nihilistic; but we can't believe her declaration that she is 'at the end of my tether' and begs her awful lover to shoot her… The play absorbs as well as stimulates. With a bald Bob Hoskins brutishly growling his way through the role of the Berlin writer who thinks L'Ignota is Elma, and Margaret Tyzack's mulish old aunt angrily insisting that she is Lucia, how could it be anything but gripping? But with much that's improbable to make probable, including the ending, Scott Thomas needs more intensity, more power, more Pirandellian passion."

Nicholas de Jongh of The Evening Standard: "As You Desire Me, the great 20th-century playwright's little-known tragedy of memory and uncertain identity, in which a dazzling Kristin Scott Thomas restores sexual charisma to the London stage, achieves the best Pirandello effect. It leaves you in a pleasing state of mental dizziness and confusion… Scott Thomas adorns Jonathan Kent's handsome, but rather stiff, underlit production, running a fine line from Berlin cynicism to Italian elegance. She exudes erotic heat, yet disappointingly cools down, fails to convey Cia's passionate despair and disillusion. This As You Desire Me remains, however, a highly desirable West End theatrical property."

Michael Billington of The Guardian: "For all the Pirandellian mystery, the play's point emerges clearly in Hugh Whitemore's elegant new version: all identity is an artificial construct depending on the faith and love of others… Everything hinges on the heroine; and, following in Garbo's footsteps, Kristin Scott Thomas here does a mostly impressive job. I felt there was something a touch dutiful about her sleazy Berlin singer drunkenly draping herself over the furniture in a diaphanous dress. She seems more at home posing as an Italian aristo's wife; and what she brings out excellently is the character's enigmatic mix of outward serenity and spiritual isolation. Paul Brown's design, meanwhile, is equally good at suggesting the metallic ugliness of 1930s Berlin and the marble stateliness of an Italian villa. And a strong cast compensate for the thinness of Pirandello's characterisation… But, running at a bare 90 minutes, Pirandello's play tantalises one intellectually while leaving one emotionally hungry."

Charles Spencer of The Independent: "Pirandello keeps us guessing to the end, and Jonathan Kent's production, in a fresh new version by Hugh Whitemore and with a sumptuous design by Paul Brown that turns the Italian villa into a dreamlike domain of tarnished mirrors and decayed silver gilt, creates a powerful atmosphere of tantalising enigma. Scott Thomas proves very special indeed as L'Ignota, glamorous but also deeply wounded, brimming with hauteur yet also revealing a touch of the slut, constantly switching from warmth and hope to a corrosive sense of despair. The splendid [Bob] Hoskins is in his element as her violent, obsessive lover, and John Carlisle and Margaret Tyzack shine especially brightly among a top-notch supporting cast."

Paul Taylor of The Independent: "Scott Thomas is first encountered as the amnesiac Elma, a cabaret singer in a sleazy Berlin nightclub 10 years after the First World War. The actress is brilliant at letting one see how this louche identity is the improvisation of a woman left to the mercy of the market… In her extraordinarily accomplished, witty, moving performance, Scott Thomas, with her bony beauty and nervy aplomb, shows you a woman who longs for a fresh start. Presenting a play permeated by doubt, Kent's opulently designed production is, without question, the genuine article."