BLACK EYED SUSAN. To 22 September.

Bury St Edmunds

BLACK EYED SUSAN
by Douglas Jerrold new version by Carl Miller.

Theatre Royal To 22 September 2007.
19-20, 22 Sept 7.30pm Mat 19, 22 Sept 2pm.
21 Sept (+ Box and Cox by K M Morton and other entertainments 7pm.
Runs (Black Eyed Susan) 2hr 30min One interval.

TICKETS: 01284 769505.
www.theatreroyal.org
Review: Timothy Ramsden 18 September.

Big and brash, but needs more cash.
Slipping in between the mainstream (if currently dark) Bristol Old Vic and Richmond, Yorkshire’s Georgian Theatre Royal, which doesn’t produce its own work, the newly-restored Georgian Theatre Royal at Bury St Edmunds, a National Trust property that’s also a touring venue and annually creates a couple of its own shows, is well-placed to be to the 1750-1850 repertory what the RSC Swan and Shakespeare’s Globe are to Shakespeare’s age, exploring a particular repertory in spaces that resemble, or replicate original performance conditions.

Director Colin Blumenau certainly goes for it whole hog with Douglas Jerrold’s 1829 nautical melodrama. There are melodramatic staples,: a wicked uncle after his married niece’s virtue, his villainous sidekick who turns out good, a hero whose neck is saved from the noose, and the comic couple whose wisecracks offset the titular heroine’s peril.

Kit Surrey’s settings magnificently recreate the visual flair of an age unafraid of colour: impoverished Susan’s cracked hovel of a home, sailing ships in the port of Deal, or the gigantic gundeck where heroic William’s imprisoned. Plus a rolling sea across which boats plough their way.

And Carl Miller’s carefully adapted script is played, often full-front to the audience, full of the tableaux that created strong sensations in audiences of the day

But this brief run raises questions about performing the repertory Susan represents. It needs larger casts; William’s trial becomes risible as the naval jury who presumably created considerable tension are replaced by cutouts comically raising hands in judgement.

Again, amid the care in acting and design, why use amplified music and a modern-sounding keyboard, or a modern lighting-plot?

And how do today’s audiences relate to such drama (some things, such as the frequent musical underscoring, are familiar today in different guises)? Blumenau fascinatingly recreates performance manner but events lumber slowly forward. If this was the Hollywood blockbuster of its day, how we be gripped rather than simply appreciate it historically?

.As for the future, I hope we’ll see some of the French/English melodramas which explore the Romantic fascination with morality, evil and rebellion through the good/bad brother contrast. This time next year?

Doggrass: Steven Osborne.
Gnatbrain: Luke Shaw.
Jacob Twig: Jack Blumenau.
Susan: Sophia Linden.
Dolly Mayflower: Janet Greaves.
William: Philip Ralph.
Blue Peter: Natalie Farmer.
Ploughshare/Lieutenant Pike: William Wolfe Hogan.
Captain Robert Crosstree: Pip Minnithorpe.
Admiral: Jay Worthy.
Country Girls: Emily Barber, Grace Chapman, Eleanor Watson.
Master at Arms: Andy Deane.
Sailors: Thomas Menarry, Matthew Turner.

Director: Colin Blumenau.
Designer: Kit Surrey.
Lighting: Simon Mills.
Composer/Musical Director: Annemarie Lewis-Thomas.
Choreographer: Lee Crowley.
Associate director: Pip Minnithorpe.
Assistant musical director: Birgitta Kenyon.
Assistant lighting: Richard Howell.

2007-09-19 01:58:36