DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY
Austen to PD James, novel to novel to TV to stage… can it survive? It’s a good question and one that has a simple answer, not totally. Duncan Abel and Rachel Wagstaff’s adaptation is a sprawling monster which depends far to much on the characters relating rather than revealing the story and Jonathan O’Boyle’s direction on this occasion is rather flat and lacklustre, not as flat and lacklustre as the lighting which does not do justice to the effective set which successfully shifts the action from place to place.
Photo: Pamela Raith
All this is something of a disappointment but the whole is somewhat rescued by some excellent playing. And by playing I mean both acting a music. How many noticed or realised that Celia Cruwys-Finnigan as Georgian Darcy and David Osmond as Henry Alveston were actually playing that piano live. I did think that their miming was rather too accomplished but what a shame that these talents were not more effectively displayed. And that piano, huge, was present in every scene, even in the Pemberley woodland.
The music was, despite this, delightful and helped create a sense of period, far more than the costumes did, almost to a garment failing to capture the sharp tailored lines of the period, structureless and ill-fitting, Alveston’s in particular which looked like an un-made bed. Thankfully he had enough presence to survive that.
The whole suffered too from a lack of clarity of diction and projection with some speeches delivered to the back of the set and disappearing completely.
Photo: Pamela Raith
With a list of characters to portray it was inevitable that some players would be undertaking multiple roles, and this was handled with dexterity for the most part, although giving Sam Woodhams the task of playing the central characters of George Wickman and Will Bidwell did not work. And Jamie-Rose Duke and James Bye never quite hit that magical sense of passion and sexual chemistry that one might have expected or hoped for as the Darcys, unbuttoning a shirt to reveal a bit of chest did not cut it and was certainly upstaged when Wickman strips to the waist.
Photo: Pamela Raith
The piece was lifted by some fine performances from the more mature and perhaps experienced members of the company. Paul Jericho was excellent in the multiple roles he was carrying, convincing in each and Louise Faulkner excellent as Mrs Younge, Joan and Mrs Piggot and brought some much needed lightness and humour to the piece. Todd Boyce’s Sir Selwyn Hardcastle lifted the evening with his shrill and pedantic portrayal. There was a much needed comic presence there, a mannered and clipped nasal twang to his delivery but never at the expense of clarity. Sarah Berger delivered her two roles with aplomb, and she was gifted with some of the best lines of the evening. Lady Catherine de Bourgh sat firmly in place as the domineering aunt, pompous, opinionated and prejudiced, she personified misguided pride and prejudice with an artfulness that didn’t depend on cliche. In contrast her Mrs Bidwell was a charmingly plump, blustering and proud mother defending her family as best she could, holding on to the truth until the very end.
Sean Rigby lent a strong sense of period with his portrayal of Colonel Fitzwilliam, holding on to the secrets throughout with a firm display of honour that whilst seemingly arrogant finally rings true, and his stature and movement certainly delivered a sense of time and place, some actors now exactly how to wear a costume even if the costume is not great.
Photo: Pamela Raith
Much as I wanted to enjoy the whole I left feeling rather let down and I suspect so did the company. Plenty of potential and talent but the production not reaching the heights one might hope for.
Andrew Kay
2 September
Theatre Royal Brighton
Rating:
