Brief ‘Swan Song’ Rich in Irony

Playing with “Flirting” (Westside Pavilion) is a not-to-be-missed 24-minute short, “Swan Song.” Directed by Kenneth Branagh from Hugh Crutwell’s vigorously colloquial adaptation of an Anton Chekhov short play, it stars John Gielgud as an 88-year-old stage actor overcome by despair as he stares out at an empty, run-down theater. To a sympathetic prompter (Richard Briers), who discovers him on the derelict stage, the actor confesses that after a long-ago rejection in love, the theater lost its magic for him. Gradually, the prompter is able to cheer him up, and the elderly man begins reciting soaring passages from “King Lear,” “Romeo and Juliet” and “Othello.”

To watch “Swan Song” is to be caught up in a paradox, for Gielgud has enjoyed as rich and triumphant a career as Chekhov’s actor has experienced a seemingly endless decline into poverty and obscurity. The irony is that while the actor Gielgud plays so magnificently concludes that it is important to “soldier on,” “Swan Song” may well be just that for one of the 20th Century’s greatest actors, for Gielgud has of late been threatening retirement.