THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY
Photo: Mark Senior
There’s ambition and then there’s AMBITION, and to set about creating a stage version of Patricia Highsmith’s classic novel with it’s complexities and multiple geographic locations… well surely that would put you off. But not Mark Leipacher, in this pacey adaptation he takes us on a journey from New York to the Amalfi coast and beyond with the lightest of touch and yet a genuine sense of place. It’s the simplest of settings, lighting that is unobtrusive and a minimal number of props, a door that is shifted by a cast, an unspeaking Greek chorus of shadowy behatted figures in grey and dun brown overcoats and trilbys and a cast of principals who hardly change costumes from start to finish. This is in part where the success of this production lies, it is devoid of tricksy theatricality, and it is so much better for that.
Adapter and director Leipacher‘s judicious trimming allows the real voice of Highsmith to sing out, and for those of us who have not only seen and enjoyed both the film and the TV series but have also read the novel, it shines by far the brightest.
This is a study of a friendship that becomes an obsession, of a man who becomes an opportunist but grows into a psychopath and killer. Unusually this is a role that as well as being chilling also has you rooting for him. It’s a massive and text heavy part for any actor to undertake, on stage for the whole performance and seldom quiet or still. I left wondering what that actor first thought when the script had landed in his lap?
Ed McVey, Photo: Mark Senior
From that opening moment when he drawls the line “Have you ever thought you are being watched” it becomes clear that any worries Ed McVey might have had were soon cast aside. Seldom do you see an actor as young as this truly inhabit a part. From those opening scenes where Ripley is a nervous and twitchy man, clearly uneasy about where his life has brought him and where it might go, to the extraordinarily sophisticated liar that he becomes is the best performance I have seen this year. McVey is simply and utterly convincing.
Bruce Herbelin-Earle, Photo: Mark Senior
His performance of course needs to be matched by an actor playing the suave and entitled Dickie Greenleaf. Bruce Herbelin-Earle is just the man for the job. The elegance is matched by an arrogance but at the same time a sense of vulnerability. Dickie has the money, and he has the style but there is an emptiness too, something is lacking in Greenleaf’s soul and gradually Ripley starts to fill that gap.
Bruce Herbelin-Earle and Ed McVey, Photo: Mark Senior
The relationship is masculine but the obvious overtones of homosexuality are played out with a balance of delicacy and sharpness, probably the best display of latent physical attraction that amounts to nothing until those final scenes when it becomes clear that Ripley is gay. It needs to be there but it does not need to be rammed down our throats from the start and here it is handled so beautifully.
Maisie Smith, Photo: Mark Senior
Maisie Smith as Marge Sherwood is delightfully delicate in her role as Dickie’s friend, the writer and his ally, but not his lover, although clearly she is in love with him and she gradually becomes suspicious of Ripley and his intentions, as an exploiter both financially and sexually.
Christopher Bianchi, Cary Crankson, Leda and Jason Eddy take on all the other named roles from the father and mother, to the flamboyant playboy Freddie Miles and English lover Peter, and they play each part so convincingly well. And they are joined by three more shadowy figures who populate the scenes and create the atmosphere, from sunny beaches to brooding dark streets and hotel lobbies.
Holly Piggot’s set is a masterpiece of restraint, minimal in one sense then beautifully atmospheric, and in combination with lighting designer Zeynep Kepekli and sound designer Max Pappenheim we are taken from downtown Manhattan to Venice seamlessly but utterly convincingly. There is magic there, Venetian comedia del arte masks shift from haunting carnival night time figures to the pecking of pigeons in Piazza San Marco for a tiny moment, almost thrown away but so perfectly executed.
That almost ever present chorus of shifting figures has been skilfully employed throughout and the movement direction by Sarita Piotrwoski has to be applauded, it’s so elegantly used, there but almost not there.
This is exciting theatre that earns its place at the top of my must see list for this year and proves that adaptations of fiction can be successfully brought to the stage. Grab a ticket while you can!
Andrew Kay
Theatre Royal Brighton
27 October
Rating:
