PORTRAIT OF A LADY. To 6 September.
Bath/Tour.
PORTRAIT OF A LADY
by Henry James adapted by Nicki Frei.
Theatre Royal In rep to 9 August
7.30pm 1, 6 Aug, Mat 2.30pm 2, 7 Aug, 3.30pm 9 Aug.
then tout to 6 September 2008.
Runs 2hr 25min One interval.
TICKETS: 01225 448844.
www.theatreroyal.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 31 July.
Back in time the point becomes clear.
Like George Meredith, Henry James is a major novelist whose fine discrimination of thought is mirrored in a complex style I find near-impenetrable. It’s rumoured some of his later novels contain sentences that would need constricting to fit into an evening, so Nicky Frei has done well to digest a whole novel.
Whilst no doubt faithful to story, characters and themes, she’s done a Betrayal on it. Like Harold Pinter’s play, the action leaps back in time, occasionally creeping forwards before taking another major step back. It moves from the early gloom of scenes where Isabel Archer is unhappily married to Gilbert Osmond, to the lightness of later scenes, set several years earlier, showing Isabel a free woman.
Free means rich, thanks to an inheritance. In the moneyed leisure of town and country houses in England, and in Rome and Florence, life’s refined and at a remove from common reality, with time to nourish, or overfeed the sensibility.
So everything takes place within a concavity of arches on Peter Mumford’s set, beyond them exteriors: clinging ivy in England, rooftops or classical ruins in Italy. Despite being near the audience, the action seems distant, partly owing to Mumford’s often subdued lighting, but also to Frei’s use of James’ considered prose. Things lighten back in Isabel’s free days; physically and in the dialogue, where wit and jokes increase.
And where Christopher Woods provides lighter costumes. Then too, Catherine McCormack’s Isabel isn’t cowed by her dark-clothed, dark-mannered husband, Finbar Lynch’s judgmental manner reflected in the way he takes any of his porcelain treasures from an admirer’s hands to wipe it with black cloth.
Isabel is his possession too, as she knows. Eventually the action returns her from earlier days to her stultified life with Osmond. In repertoire at Bath with A Doll’s House the plays’ similarities and contrast becomes clear. Ibsen’s originality is reinforced, but in itself this elegant progression of short scenes, despite problems (Pinter only introduced us to three characters; here a lot more have to be assimilated), in Peter Hall’s beautifully-composed production, this Portrait eventually works as a stage picture.
Isabel Archer: Catherine McCormack.
Gilbert Osmond: Finbar Lynch.
Lord Warburton: Dan Fredenburgh.
Madame Merle: Niamh Cusack.
Ralph Touchett: Anthony Howell.
Mrs Touchett: Jean Marsh.
Daniel Touchett: Christopher Ravenscroft.
Caspar Goodwood: Oliver Chris.
Henrietta Stackpole: Susie Trayling.
Countess Gemini: Flaminia Cinque.
Pansy Osmond: Laura Power.
Roman Matron: Vivien Keene.
Ned Rosier: Charlie Anson.
Miss Molyneux: Nelly Harker.
Guide/Butler: Malcolm James.
Maid: Sophie Scott.
Waiter: Andrew Bloomer.
Director: Peter Hall.
Designer/Lighting: Peter Mumford.
Sound: Gregory Clarke.
Costume: Christopher Woods.
Associate director: Cordelia Mounsey.
2008-08-01 08:56:06