BIRDS WITHOUT WINGS. To 2 December.

Tour

BIRDS WITHOUT WINGS
by Louis de Bernieres adapted by Ivan Cutting

Eastern Angles Tour to 2 December 2006
Runs2hr 30min One interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 22 November at Upstairs at the Gatehouse

Despite the different ways plays and novels work, the point gets made.
Suffolk-based Eastern Angles has spread its wings in adapting Norfolk-based Louis de Bernieres’ novel about a multi-ethnic village community a century back in Turkey. Greeks and Turks mix with Armenians and a supposed Circassian woman, while Christianity and Islam co-exist. That’s until war and renewed nationalism invade them.

Suddenly violence and ethnic cleansing (sanctioned internationally in 1923 by the Treaty of Lausanne) ruin the delicate human balance, and individuals’ lives. It’s a story that doubtless develops well at its own pace in the novel, with readers’ imaginations creating the sense of characters and their interior states.

Swift-imaging film could doubtless create suitable rhythms too. But adapter/director Ivan Cutting and his ethnically-apt cast struggle to establish these people and give reality to sometimes very fleeting, or reported, events and their impact.

The tone can be uncertain. When Alp Hayder and Taylan Halici move from playing young friends across the religious divide to being bearded clerics (Hayder’s Orthodox Father Cristoforos sprouting an especially assertive black forest of chin-hair), is the inevitable move of these young actors towards caricature, or at least externalised portrayals, intentional (in which case, what is it saying about the clergy)? Or is it a by-product of multi-role casting?

Too many events crowd into the opening scenes to assimilate from scratch. At times it’s hard to keep up with which actor is which character. And the crest of the dramatic wave passes while there’s still a lot of plot aftermath to pick up. Doubtless it’s very different for someone familiar with the novel; yet an adaptation ought to work in its own terms.

Still, despite the problems, the story resonates with more recent population dislocations. And Eastern Angles’ cast create sympathy for their embodiments of the innocent characters who are disturbed first by the sight of the wounded, wordless outcast they call ‘Dog’ then by the changes that turn the sort of horror Dog initially causes into the backdrop to the new reality in which they have to live. They’re helped by Becky Hurst’s set of model homes on a layered hillside, adding its own, stylised sense of reality.

Mehmetcik/Father Kristoforos/Levon the Sly: Alp Hayder
Karatatavu/Abdulhamid Hodjak/Kardelen/Lt Granitola: Taylan Halici
Drosoula/Ayse: Elena Pavli
Philothel/Tamara: Ece Dizdar
Ibrahim/Rustem Bey: Sharif Dorani
The Dog/Leonidas/Gerasimos: Stavros Demetraki
Iskander/Sgt Osman: George Savvides
Polyxeni/Leyla: Yasmin Bodolbhai

Director: Ivan Cutting
Designer: Becky Hurst
Lighting: Helen Morley
Musical Director: Pat Whymark
Costume: Faby Pym
Assistant director: Cassie Werber

2006-11-25 10:37:03