CARRIE'S WAR. Tio 6 January.
London
CARRIE’S WAR
by Nina Bawden adapted by Emma Reeves*
Lilian Baylis Theatre (Sadler’s Wells) Rosebery Avenue EC1R 4TN To 6 January 2007
11am 31 Dec
3pm 28-31 Dec, 2-3, 6 Jan
7pm 28-30 Dec, 2-6 Jan
Runs 2hr 15min One interval
TICKETS: 0870 737 7737 (24 hours £2.50 transaction charge)
www.sadlerswells.com (£1.50transaction charge)
Review: Timothy Ramsden 27 December
Nothing new here in translating page to stage, but strong narrative and well-played characters win the day in Novel Theatre’s production.
Novel Theatre’? Well, it’s new to have a company dedicated to adapting novels. Yet this adaptation of Nina Bawden’s story of an English girl and her young brother evacuated to wartime rural Wales is as conventional as they come.
Two homes are set, one either side the stage. In one, the Willow siblings are billeted with the terrifyingly moral Samuel Evans, broad-shouldered but narrow-minded, and his sister Louisa, nice-as-pie but under her brother’s thumb.
The other is where another Evans sister escaped in marriage, and represents freedom, having its own nice-as-pie female, Caribbean Hepzibah, whom the Methodist Samuel sees as a malign influence. It’s home too to Mr Johnny, the young man whose childlike mind also provokes Evans’ uncomprehending contempt.
Between these is a wooded area, to which Carrie and her son descend on her return visit 30 years on, in scenes framing the action. These distance events and the final minutes include a reunion which indicates how life, having brought people together, seems almost forcibly to drift them apart.
It’s a pity Reeves, or director Andrew Loudon, haven’t found a stylistic key to linking the many short scenes (various Welsh hymns and Carrie’s voiceover letters home don’t conceal the fractured structure). And there’s the ‘curse of the cameo’ as actors of peripheral parts cope seek ways to establish characters created for a minute or two apiece.
In the main scenes, though, fine central performances ensure the story grips, whether it’s Sion Tudor Owen showing fissures into Samuel’s sad interior or Rachel Isaac’s picture of a subdued sister’s natural benevolence. Sam Crane articulates Albert Sandwich’s cerebral schoolboy sureness and later realisation of his weakness.
Best of all are Amanda Symonds’ Hepzibah, with her kindness that’s learned to discount others’ ignorance and prejudice. And, at the centre, Sarah Edwardson’s Carrie: subtly shaping the script to makes points with inflections or looks, this is a beautifully conceived performance which grows throughout the show.
And by casting a physically-disabled actor as Johnny, the production brings its audience to face their preconceptions and prejudices as so many characters have to do during Carrie’s War.
* Emma Reeves’ adaptation of Carrie’s War is published by Oberon at £8.99
Carrie Willow: Sarah Edwardson
Carrie’s Son/Nick Willow: Mark Field
Mrs Fazackerley: Laura Staveley
Albert Sandwich: Sam Crane
Billeting Officer/Major Cass Harper/Frederick Evans/Mourner/Mr Rhys: Hywel Morgan
Hepzibah Green: Amanda Symonds
Louisa Evans: Rachel Isaac
Samuel Evans: Sion Tudor Owen
Johnny Gotobed: James Beddard
Director: Andrew Loudon
Designer/Costume: Edward Lipscomb
Lighting: Matthew Eagland
Sound: John Leonard
Singing supervisor: Sue Appleby
Fight director: Philip d’Orleans
2006-12-30 01:09:07