ORIGINAL SIN. To 22 June.

Sheffield

ORIGINAL SIN
by Peter Gill

Crucible Theatre To 22 June 2002
Mon-Sat 7.30pm
Runs 3hr 20min One interval

TICKETS 0114 249 6000
Review Timothy Ramsden 8 June

Tight-focused direction makes the most of a quart-in-pint-pot script.I never thought to see a Peter Gill play include a comic chase set to fairground music. There again, Original Sin isn't entirely an original play.

It arises from a couple of vigorous dramas in which, a century ago, the German Frank Wedekind traced the progress of Lulu, an embodiment of female sexual desirability. She was the living object onto whom male (and in one aristocratic case, female) sexual desire was projected, and off whom it bounced back to destroy the people who desired her.

Wedekind sets enough problems; his Lulu takes two full-length plays to rise and fall. Gill goes further, keeping the period setting and many character names, but turning Lulu into an anonymous young man – 'Angel' is just one of the desire-saturated names he's called.

In this all-male reworking, the social climate changes. Lulu's lovers cavort with the blinds down to keep middle-class morality out. But a gay demi-monde circa 1900 has its own secrecy, and solidarity - caught well in Gill's sombre, unhurried direction. The lesbian countess Geschwitz has no easy counterpart in this world – nor can Gill call on the thrill Wedekind evoked, having his Lulu done in by Jack the Ripper.

Yet, the final, long scenes – the decadent elegance of the gay society ball where Angel and his last remaining besotted escape the sinister white slaver Casti-Piani, and the contrasting squalor of the London attic where they meet the deadly underbelly of passion - are handled by Gill at his best: quiet, spare, intense. By contrast, the preceding dinner scene, where Angel murders his protector, is awkwardly staged, missing the savage humour and losing a sense of location.

Good performances from John Normington's MC-like father figure, Michael Byrne as Angel's ill-fated 'protector' and David Kennedy as a rough-trade strongman, plus strong contributions from Clive Arrindell's Casti-Piani and Michael Shaeffer as the murderer Jack. But Andrew Scott's Angel is too often simply petulant and other performances lack a defining strength, giving the very full-length evening a mixture of concentrated elegance and so-so longeurs.

Slavin: John Normington
Leopold Southerndown: Michael Byrne
Eugene Black: Adam James
Dr Edwin Goulderie/Baron St. Eglise: Paul Imbusch
Angel: Andrew Scott
Arthur Southerndown: Steve John Shepherd
Hugo Anstruther/August: Andrew Fallaize
Stage Manager/Phillipeau: Robert Styles
Dresser/Weil/Mr Tomkins: Barry Howard
Buller: David Kennedy
Lord Henry Wantage: Richard Cant
Frederick/Baptiste/Jack: Michael Shaeffer
The Marchese di Casti Piani: Clive Arrindell
Hippolyte/Euba: David Carr
Bob: Paul Child

Director: Peter Gill
Designer: Alison Chitty
Assistant Designer: Jessica Curtis
Lighting: Hartlery T A Kemp
Composer: Terry Davies

2002-06-11 11:02:07