By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ****

WHEN?: Saturday 19 September, opens 27 September and runs through 14 November 2026 RUNTIME: 85 minutes (no interval)

You join us in the New York apartment belonging to writer Truman Capote at Christmas in 1975 as Manhattan socialites who were once his confidants turn their backs on him when they recognise thinly-veiled versions of themselves in an excerpt of his new novel published in Esquire magazine.

• Read on for reasons including how TRU boasts a commanding central performance of 1 of history’s more colourful if perhaps occasionally loathed characters

So far so Ryan Murphy’s Feud: Capote vs The Swans but what is intriguing about this revival of a 1989 Jay Presson Allen play is how convincingly the Menier has been transformed into this apartment with the audience placed on sofas, chairs and stools throughout it.

We arrived 30 minutes early for this 1st preview joining a queue for our unallocated seating and found ourselves in the 2nd seating row behind Capote’s desk with a terrific view as Ferguson’s (Here We Are, National Theatre) Capote paces neurotically through his home taking calls, making voice recordings, talking to himself and occasionally breaking the 4th wall to engage the audience.

We have the sofa for a later performance which is very much at the centre of the room with space for Capote to join us there and interact with us as happened to an unlikely couple at this performance.

Capote has been the subject of much media including a 2005 film of that name which won Philip Seymour Hoffman a Best Actor Oscar.

Ferguson’s Capote is entertaining company which is important because this is a near-monologue punctuated only be occasional recorded voices as phone messages are received and by the physical manfifestation of his very many ‘swans’ embodied by Charlotte D’Amboise.

Capote is an alcoholic coming to terms with realising as a child that he was born the wrong sex and yet unafraid to hide his homosexuality at a time when it cannot have been easy to live publically that way.

Ferguson imbues the fondness for female company, liquor and drugs with a party-going sensibility that sees Capote joining movie stars in the legendary Studio 54 with a convincing degree of childish over enthusiasm.

But while this production boasts a magnetic central performance the plot feels as lacking in depth as the trivia with which this king of the gossip prides himself in.

Staging TRU in such intimate fashion gives the audience a front-row seat into a world of royal scandal and power couple infidelities that plays on much that still feels relevant to today’s world.

Ferguson gives a commanding performance though as 1 of history’s more colourful if perhaps occasionally loathed characters.

• Pictures via Facebook courtesy Menier Chocolate Factory Tickets
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