GOBLIN MARKET. To 6 August.
London
GOBLIN MARKET
by Abigail Docherty based on the poem by Christina Rossetti
Southwark Playhouse To 6 August 2005
Mon-Sat 7.30pm
Runs 1hr 15min No interval
TICKETS: 08700 600 100 (24 hrs)
www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 4 August
Southwark's summer season ends with a piece that deserves a place for performance.Many aspects of this production could be improved. Vocally, a key performance is sometimes underpowered. Voice and movement generally are good enough, but within a limited range. Direction and design are efficient (within a presumably limited budget available for set-building). Yet the mix of modern reality and fairy elements imported from Christina Rossetti's 19th century poem, could be developed further. The music, though, probably is as good as it could get: varied, evocative and individual.
The point is, it hardly matters. This piece works in its own terms. Its modern, London-living sisters, are chalk and cheese: Lizzie, established, purposeful and career-minded, Laura new in town, fanciful and drifting despite her sister's rebukes. So, one day in a market that's suddenly sprung up, it's unsurprising Laura sends £2.50 on a copy of the Rossetti poem, a book once presented from a woman to her sister, also a Laura and Lizzie.
From this emerges a mix of Abigail Docherty's dialogue and Rossetti's verse taking first Laura then, in pursuit of the world her sister tries to recapture, Lizzie, into a night-town of clubs and drugs. As Emily Rose Smith's Laura makes clear, it's the fascination and sensual pleasure which makes the downside of the experience desirable. Danger bears its own attractions, which can take away, or heighten the pleasure of, the sense of being dangerous.
With the 3 male goblins ever-present on the circumference, when not taking a part in the women's world, the sexuality embedded on Rossetti's poem is released. As is the delicate balance, for some natures anyway, of respectable social existence and the lure of wayward desires.
The choreography of John Terry's production gives the piece its fascination, woven together by the elements making up the musical score, itself often enticing in its repeated, curling phrases. Smith and Lydia Piechowiak are finely contrasted, one smiling, alluring and lured, the other decisive even when making-up to follow her sister's path. The Goblins are plausible too, especially Tim Speyer's bookseller. But, is Laura's final resolve to spend money next time on clothes rather than books a sign of our times?
Laura: Emily Rose Smith
Lizzie: Lydia Piechowiak
Goblins: Jonathan Hooley, Tim Speyer, Simon Balfour
Director: John Terry
Designer/Costume: Rajha Shakiry
Sound: Lee Wilson
Music: Benjamin Wolf, Favourite Ache
Music Production: Nick Davies
Movement: Kitty Winter
2005-08-05 10:21:57