LA DISPUTE/SCENES OF LOVE. To 25 March.
Chipping Norton/London
LA DISPUTE/SCENES OF LOVE
by Pierre Marivaux/by William Shakespeare
The Theatre Chipping Norton To 17 March
Tue-Sat 8pm then
Pleasance Theatre Carpenters Mews North Road N7 9EF 20-25 March 2007
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Sun 5pm Mat Thu 1.30pm
Runs 2hr One interval
TICKETS: 01608 642350
www.chippingnortonrtheatre.com (Chipping Norton)
020 7609 1800
www.pleasanbce.co.uk (London)
Review: Timothy Ramsden 15 March
Cold experiment with hot passion in fascinating cross-Channel creation.
There’s a scientific experiment with an agenda going on in Marivaux’s discussion-piece. Who’s the unfaithful side of the species, male or female? Being nobles in 18th century France, the Prince and Hermianne have human guinea-pigs to hand as an aid to sorting out their argument: 2 young men and 2 young women brought up in isolation, unaware of the other sex. What will happen when they meet; where is the source of infidelity?
This co-production between Normandy’s Le Preau Theatre and Chipping Norton has already played at the French company’s home in Vire. It adds a further element with its Turkish setting; youthful urgency at the discovery of sexual desire is framed by languid lolling around the centrepiece pool. And it refers to the Biblical story of Adam and Eve.
Eric de Dadelsen’s cast humanise the process of discovery, expressing the intensity of desire, the prospect of tedium, onset of quarrelling and discovery of new passion. All this shows most clearly in Juliette Navis-Bardin’s Egle, from the naïve confidence (which Marivaux expresses with simple clarity) to her later turbulent emotional conflicts. Alexandre Zeff’s Azor admirably registers a simple, male version of these. When the 2 male guinea-pigs meet, stamping and splashing around, the natural origin of laddish life becomes apparent.
It’s a short piece and here it’s fruitfully interspersed with love-moments from Shakespeare (the English presumably translated for French audiences as a Marivaux translation is projected in England).
It hardly matters the linguistic styles clash, Shakespeare’s more image-laden speeches sounding a different register. The Sonnets (some sung) never merge into the piece, but there’s an apt decline from The Tempest’s idealistic lovers – matching Marivaux’s in their innocence - through Iago’s misogyny to the effortful, cynicism-laced love declarations from Troilus and Cressida.
This decline’s arrested by As You Like It’s harmonious epilogue, shared between sexes and languages. Marivaux interrupts his experiment as the consequences become unbearable for its instigators. This production adds its own cold close, in the disposal of the human materials. Ironically; for, in their vulnerability, inquiry and urgency, the young quartet provide this production’s main energy.
Hermianne: Assly Zandry
Le Prince: Richard Keightley
Mesrou: Jatin Mehta
Carise: Tamsin Fessey
Egle: Juliette Navis-Bardin
Azor: Alexandre Zeff
Adine: Aude Sabin
Mesrin: Yann Burlot
Meslis: Richard Pepper
Dina: Julia Sandford
Director: Eric de Dadelsen
Designer: Jean-Pierre Gallet
Lighting: Paul J Need
Sound: Bertrand Deshayes
Music: Alonso Mendoza
Costume: Angela Dodson
Dramaturg: Daniele Klein
2007-03-16 10:46:25