"I won't, I promise, refer to Felicity Kendal as Tom Stoppard's muse. No, she says firmly. Not this week. Speaking to Stoppard's former partner and longtime leading lady is delicate in the immediate aftermath of the writer's death. But she is previewing a revival of his Indian Ink, so he shimmers through the conversation. The way Kendal refers to Stoppard in the present tense tells its own poignant story."
"Settling into a squishy brown sofa at Hampstead theatre, Kendal describes revisiting the 1995 work, developed from a 1991 radio play. It's a play that I always thought I'd like to go back to. Previously starring as Flora Crewe, a provocative British poet visiting 1930s India, she now plays Eleanor Swan, Flora's sister. We meet Eleanor in the 1980s, fending off an intrusive biographer but uncovering her sister's rapt and nuanced relationships in India."
"The redoubtable sisters are both bluestockings, considers Kendal. They have very much the same beginning politically they're edgy, and they break the rules. Young Eleanor was a communist, involved with a married politician but the stern older woman, always with two kinds of cake on the go, has become, Kendal suggests, a little more conservative. Mrs Swan is mourning what has gone. Because she's lived much longer, there's a sadness for the past."
Felicity Kendal revisits Indian Ink, a play developed from a 1991 radio piece and staged in 1995, now appearing as Eleanor Swan rather than Flora Crewe. Eleanor appears in the 1980s, resisting an intrusive biographer while uncovering her sister Flora's intense relationships in 1930s India. Kendal reports hazy memories of the original production and notes that the sisters share intellectual beginnings and rule-breaking tendencies. Young Eleanor was a communist with a complicated liaison, while older Eleanor has become more conservative and mournful. Flora is characterised as adventurous and inclined to seize life's chances.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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