DOUBLE INDEMNITY. To 13 October.

Pitlochry

DOUBLE INDEMNITY
by James M Cain adapted by David Joss Buckley

Pitlochry Festival Theatre In rep to 13 October 2003
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat Wed & Sat 2pm
Runs 2hr 40min One interval

TICKETS: 01796 484626
boxoffice@pitlochry.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 25 August

Pitlochry reaches for gold with this noir.Murder, guilt and remorse feature in this staging of the classic Amewrican noir novel, best known through its screen incarnation. But the themes go back to Zola's novel Therese Raquin where a husband's murder brings a rift between the plotting wife and her lover. And to the more general statement in Richard II that the love of evil men converts to fear, that fear to hate. Watch it happen on stage in Ian Grieve's beautifully-judged production.

Just about everything's right. Ken Harrison's set provides tight areas for the pursuit by insurance man Keyes. There's a true noir touch to his investigation and deductions - it's not led by any abstract interest in justice, but is a company face-saving search backed by a near-existential determination to prove his claims-assessing instinct is right.

There's the stage-corner where the confession whicvh frames the back-flashing action is laboriously recorded, and raised, open spaces where the fatal, devious alliance is arrranged that leads to an innocent man's murder, so set-up that a payout can be claimed against the insurance policy's doubled bounty.

Aided by Mark Pritchard's moody lighting, Harrison's anonymous walls are contrasted by the flame-red curtains and dress assigned the more relentless of the criminal pair.

The playing is just about perfect, with Dougal Lee's blandly complacent victim set right to be sympathetic yet not too interesting and Louise Bolton's daughter, who spills so many suspicious beans about her step-mother's past, given a wholesome youthfulness.

Guy Fearon captures most of a man whose upright expertise goes awry through desire for a bad woman passion - the worry's there in his silences during the office scenes, while Jamie Chapman is perfect as the insurance company owner who lacks the instinct and tactical foresight to see through the fraud plot.

If there's a doubt about Fiona Steele, she certainly has the necessary darkly devious mind for the less thinking, more purely emotionally-driven criminal. Unlike Barbara Stanwyck, she hasn't the aid of soft-focus or hard-edged close-up, but somehow the passion doesn't project. Better underplay than ham it up, but while she suggests cold manipulation there's little to suggest a passion that drives her accomplice crazy enough to put sexual desire before moral and career sense.

Coming from the plot sidelines to centre-stage is Jimmy Chisholm's insurance hack, actuarial tables and a nose for a suspicious claim seemingly bred into him. It's a remarkably focused performance, switching with time-shifts from innocent, professional sponsoring of Walter to later time-zone enthusiasm for his counter-plotting, always mixed with a driven self-questioning, either at what he can't yet see or his disappointment over his protege. It's a beautifully unstarry star performance in a fine night out at Pitlochry.

Walter Huff: Guy Fearon
Phyllis Nurdlinger: Fiona Steele
Barton Keyes: Jimmy Chisholm
Lola Nurdlinger: Louise Bolton
Nino Sachetti/Train Conductor/Lou Keswick: Philip Hazelby
Chartles Norton: Jamie Chapman
Herbert Nurdlinger: Dougal Lee
Jackson/Hospital Porter: Moray Treadwell
Belle/Nurse: Louise Davidson

Director: Ian Grieve
Designer/Costume: Ken Harrison
Lighting: Mark Pritchard

2003-08-26 16:03:49