DON'T LOOK NOW. To 31 March.
London
DON’T LOOK NOW
by Daphne du Maurier adapted by Nell Leyshon
Lyric Hammersmith To 31 March 2007
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat 2.30pm
Runs 2hr 20min One interval
TICKETS: 08700 500511
www.lyric.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 29 March
Successful translation to stage of Daphne du Maurier’s eerie story.
Nell Leyshon’s script for this Sheffield Lyceum/Lyric Hammersmith co-production rightly gives room for theatre’s visual physicality, building haunting images reflecting and reinforcing each other, suggesting ideas just beyond the reach of definition and thereby reaching the heart of this story about a married English couple’s inability to deal with their daughter’s sudden death.
Strongly-experienced emotions which their minds cannot assimilate lead to heightened suggestibility. In the case of husband John (Simon Paisley Day fine in angry, unbending grief) that takes the form of determined rationality, denying the psychic insight he possesses.
Laura (Susie Trayling, catching the character’s emotional variety) is open to any suggestion of contact with their girl, but lacking direct contact with the supernatural has to rely on the elderly sisters who echo the couple’s tour around Venice, where the action’s set. One sister can see, and explain; the other, physically blind but psychically-sighted, expresses the pain of impending disaster.
Lucy Bailey’s finely-tuned production is rich in theatrical images; John and Laura’s restaurant table and the sisters’ slowly float past each other, like lazy gondolas. Reflecting this repeated motif, John and Laura’s hotel-room bed splits slowly asunder as she prepares to return to England.
There’s a shallow channel of water at the front of Mike Britton’s design - suddenly, vividly used as the source of evil and danger at the end. And the reflective black floor and walls can suggest grandeur while, played upon by Chris Davey’s shimmering light, creating a watery womb in which the English visitors seem to float or struggle without direction, often to quietly intense music. Repeatedly, the sisters are seen silently in colourless light and grey clothing, a discomforting reminder of danger set against the more warmly-lit couple.
Leyshon keeps objective reality at bay; the serial-murders are introduced slowly and obliquely, meaning external events are interpreted through the whirling maze of John’s disturbed consciousness, to the final moment where the external and internal hurtle into horrific collision. Purely realistic scenes which might lower the temperature allow relief amidst the growing theatrical intensity. Finely re-imagined, this stands in theatre alongside Nicholas Roeg’s famous film.
John: Simon Paisley Day
Laura: Susie Trayling
Sister: Joanna McCallum
Blind Sister: Susan Wooldridge
Hotel Clerk: Eliot Giuralarocca
Chief of Police/Street Musician: James Bellorini
Child: Karen Anderson
Restaurant Proprietor/Policeman: Enzo Squillino
Director: Lucy Bailey
Designer: Mike Briitton
Lighting: Chris Davey
Sound/Music: J Peter Schwalm, Nell Catchpole
Voice coach: Penny Dyer
Fight director: Richard Ryan
Assistant director: Dan Ayling
2007-03-30 09:20:48