LITTLE WOMEN by Louisa May Alcott. New End to 13 January.

London

LITTLE WOMEN
by Louisa May Alcott, adapted by Emma Reeves

Tangled Web Theatre Company at New End Theatre To 13 January 2002
Runs 2hr One interval

TICKETS 020 7794 0022
Review Timothy Ramsden 16 December

Brave try at rescuing a minor classic for the modern age falls short.Having played successfully at Edinburgh and Highgate, this adaptation of 19th century American novelist Louisa May Alcott's first two books about the March family – based on the Alcotts themselves – reaches Hampstead. The producing company, Tangled Web, can't be accused of following fashion, though they have an up-to-the-age purpose in their choice of material.

By modern standards the all-girl March family may seem exclusively house-bound and family conscious – the 'Louisa character' Jo sees her writing as a needed source of income while the much-regarded daddy is away at war – but in their mutual dynamics the women characters have a strength and independence generally suppressed or patronised when men are around to be the heroes, or authors, of 19th century fiction.

And Sarah Grochala's performance shows a delight in authorship, even if the fees remain the necessary motivation. Generally, the March family members are presented clearly, if without much refinement in the acting. A number of performers are stretched by the doubling, particularly among the menfolk who enter, and sometimes precipitously leave, the young women's lives.

Lizzie Conrad makes a decent job of the daughters' mother, coping with an actor's other nightmare, having to play a character who's 100% unglamorously decent. It's more challenging on stage than in a novel; the actor is stripped bare of the author's warming cocoon of comment with little nourishment in heroics or human frailties.

And despite clear commitment by the whole company, this remains a page-bound production. The bedside scene of Beth's fatal illness arises like a sentimental sore thumb and the struggles in life are too numerous to have proper attention within the notorious two hours' traffic of the stage – adhered to with a commendable literalness.

The literalness is less welcome in other respects, as events somehow simultaneously race and plod along. Modern theatre has shown several ways of enriching fiction on stage, but this production finds none of them, nor any of its own.

Jo March: Sarah Grochala
Meg March: Sarah Edwardson
Amy March: Diana Eskell
Beth March/Belle Moffat: Nikki Leigh Scott
Mrs March: Lizzie Conrad
Laurie: Paul Hampton
John Brooke/Ned Moffat/Aunt Carol: Dewi Hughes
Sallie Gardiner/Aunt March: Ann Micklethwaite
Fred Vaughn/Frederich Bhaer: Tim Fessler

Director: Andrew Loudon
Designer: Rachel Payne
Lighting: Patrick Evans
Music: Paul Weir

2002-01-10 07:15:26