The Habit of Art

The Habit of Art by Alan Bennett is one of those layered sorts of things, like rock strata or onions. It's about a theatre troupe putting on a play about WH Auden and Benjamin Britten (as well as their biographer and a call boy). The play follows them as they rehearse the play, in the presence of their stage manager and the writer. As they go through the play, they are constantly interrupted and have conversations and arguments about the play, its subject, and about anything else they can think of.
This play is a wonderful example of characterization, with each character standing out in both the play itself and the play within the play. Nobody comes off as flat or dull, everyone seems to have a background and interesting stories, even if we don't get to hear all of them. Through the play we get to see one little glimpse of their lives, this one rehearsal of a work in progress. This is the sort of glimpse that the average person never sees of a real play, as theatregoers only ever get to see the play in its final form, once it's been rehearsed repeatedly and revised to (near-)perfection.
The play, especially towards the end, gives a message about how, when we remember great men, there's always someone left out of the story. This message is wonderfully conveyed at the end when the writer asks the manager if he's right and if there are people left out. She quietly agrees, and he leaves. She then turns the lights out and leaves, herself. One is left to feel that, if all these actors and the writer and all of them are remembered, she probably will not be.

Of special note is the set the play was performed on. I had assumed that the wall and all its details-- doors, wires and the like-- were actual parts of the theatre, but as we all found out during the tour, it was actually part of the set! Here I thought the set was very minimal and it turned out that a lot of work and detail had gone into it after all. Sneaky.