BRIMSTONE AND TREACLE. To 7 August.
London
BRIMSTONE AND TREACLE
by Dennis Potter
Bridewell Theatre To 7 August 2004
Tue-Sun 7.30pm Mat Sun 3.30pm
Runs 1hr 50min One interval
TICKETS: 020 7936 3456
www.lastminute.com/brimstoneandtreacle
Review: Timothy Ramsden 18 July
Examination of Good and Evil's complexity needs to speak up for its characters.Among successes the BBC can trumpet, a loud raspberry should be blown for its refusal to show challenging work, including this 1976 play - even TV's star dramatist couldn't escape censorship. Seen instead at Sheffield's Crucible Studio, Brimstone and Treacle now emerges as a period piece, still striking for its sweet-and-sour picture of good and evil intermixed.
Fine-looking young Martin barges into the Bates' drab life and living-room (partly living room', considering the spare design and the Bates' dulled lives), claiming to have been a close friend of their student daughter Pattie, brain-damaged in an accident.
He wins over Mrs Bates and, eventually, her reluctant husband by playing on their prejudices and fears. His real agenda lurches between sneak-thief and sexual predator, twice raping the helpless Pattie. Yet he brings a kind of light into their lives and even seems to restore something in the young woman's mind.
That takes some believing. Deprived of TV close-ups and editing, it needs more than the flat victims the Bates parents are in 1066 Productions' revival. Cardboard cutout contemptibles, they lack the dignity that lies in two years care of Pattie. Many good people's relationships have broken under such a strain; making the characters near simpletons is itself an easy, and contemptible, option.
And Martin's servile, ingratiating manner's so patently false it further diminishes his victims, especially when Chris Hastings keeps mugging at the audience with his distaste for the Bates. It's not a matter of denying their limits or his intentions, but the draining of any complexity soon wears out dramatic interest.
It's left to Maria Carson to give the evening's outstanding performance. Gurgling, regurgitating, facial muscles forever working away, arms in a perpetual interplay, moments of possible joy and evident alarm intertwining with finely orchestrated cries and alarms, it's never patronising to the disabled and a vivid, shocking picture of vulnerability. Even mostly concealed by Martin in his rapes, her flailing legs show the body's traumatic reactions, making the moments one of felt horror rather than vulgar voyeurism. And her final moment of repose comes very near making Potter's difficult point convincing.
Mr Bates: Peter Sundby
Mrs Bates: Lorna Doyle
Martin: Chris Hastings
Pattie: Maria Carson
Director: Alistair Green
Designer: George Gold
Lighting: Ben Pickersgill
Composers: Vanessa Lucas-Smith, Jonathan Langford
Costume: Lara Lodato
Assistant director: Sarah Norman
Assistant designer: Nikki May
2004-07-19 10:42:37