DAISY MILLER To 19 November.
Tour.
DAISY MILLER
by Henry James adapted by Dawn Keeler, with Adolf Wood.
Tour to 19 November 2005.
Runs 2hr One interval.
Review: Timothy Ramsden 17 September at Richmond Theatre.
Daisy rightly gets her name in the title it's the performance that brightens the stage.
Considering Henry James' later novels have sentences which could fill an evening, it's not surprising his earlier, slighter fiction is what stage adaptors go for. Like this story of a gauche New Yorker from Schenectady (now high-tech and upmarket, then presumably just provincial) meeting refined Americans during a visit to Geneva and Rome. It's these US people, rather than the usual Euro-sophisticates, who do Daisy down.
Fears begin as the curtain rises on Richard Grieve's Winterbourne sitting at a smart hotel table, coffee-pot in front of him, writing a diary note announced in voiceover. The untheatrical screams languidly all round. James' characters rarely have to earn a living and their leisured reflections aren't dramatic material.
Even ace theatre vet Christopher Morahan can find nowhere to go in Dawn Keeler and Adolf Wood's inertly literal adaptation. Attempts to trick out society (understudies as servants and passers-by) create moments of risible caricature and contrivance. And, as always in this scale of touring, there are the redoubtable TV names, good actors but Jean Boht, Sandra Dickinson and Shirley Anne Field can't do much with the externally observed aspects of characters originally written from the inside-out.
Christopher Woods' costumes seem period-perfect; his set (though requiring awkward manipulation) creates suitably misty mountain-tops and Roman skyline as background to the sharper close-focus events in hotel rooms.
Grieve's narrating gent, fond as he is of Daisy, has little to do but comment languidly and look on with a smile, which he does to perfection. Scarlett Johnson has the misfortune to be near-namesake of a young Hollywood star, but is clearly her own person as a performer. Her Daisy is fresh, perceptive and naively direct, expressing others' dislikes of her in ways they'd prefer to keep to looks and hints. Never quite at home in her flouncy white dress, manhandling her sunshade, she'd be at home wielding a broom or the reins of an untamed bronco.
Considered shocking in her day (1878) Daisy here has a brightness that diffuses the cloudy grey surrounds of characters and set. Morahan's production makes the central point well, but this remains a page-bound experience feeling awkward on the stage.
Frederick Winterbourne: Richard Grieve.
Daisy Miller: Scarlett Johnson.
Eugenia/Mr Giovanelli: Craig Giovanelli.
Mrs Costello: Jean Boht.
Mrs Miller: Sandra Dickinson.
Mrs Walker: Shirley Anne Field.
Servants/Passers-by: Ceri Foster, Rebecca Mitchell, Mary Sheen.
Director: Christopher Morahan.
Designer/Costume: Christopher Woods.
Lighting: Jerry Jenkinson.
Sound: Thames Audio.
Music: Ilona Sekacz.
2005-09-19 11:42:08