Like Ian McEwan's Atonement, there is a strong, almost Grecian sense of fate in Skylight; the discovery of a love letter, an affair exposed, the mistress gone, and the wife's tragic death from cancer. A stony father and an orphaned son. Three years after these events, in the afternoon, the evening, and then the morning, the ex-mistress, Kyra Hollis, is visited by both the father, Tom Sergeant, and the son, Edward Sergeant, both of whom are seeking help.
Skylight is slightly fantastical against its very real, very rough, north-west London setting in that Kyra and Tom are allowed a sense of reconciliation about their (contentious) relationship, their ideas and their respective lifestyles. They battle it out, like Albee's George and Martha, taking up society's forgotten, central heating, and capitalism as ammo, as they try to cut through all of the distortions of reality that have swollen in the wake of Alice's death in search of the truth. While Susanna Clapp, for one, has argued that Hare is 'too schematic' in the way that he overtly uses the characters of Kyra and Tom to symbolise 'the two faces of the Britain scarred by Margaret Thatcher'; I would argue that their intellectual ferocity is perfectly balanced by humour and genuine affection. As much as Kyra and Tom want to 'have it out' and garner a proper answer from all the chaos that surrounds them, in equal measure, they want to come together and have a good time.
Indeed, I love the way in which Hare both starts and ends Skylight with Kyra receiving a visit from Edward. At once breezy and fluent, and loving and open, their two dialogues seem to give the audience a welcome confirmation of the power of love to heal after their family unit has been torn asunder. By ending the play in this way, he shows us that differences aside, there are always new beginnings.
With thanks to theguardian.com for the image and Clapp's article.
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