RAPUNZEL. To 14 January.

London

RAPUNZEL
by Annie Siddons

bac Lavender Hill SW11 5TN To 14 January 2007
Tue-Sat7.30pm Sun 6pm no performance 2 Jan
Runs 2hr 5min One interval

TICKETS: 020 7223 2223
www.bac.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 31 December

Warning: bac says not for undere-7s, and they mean it. That apart, here’s a triumphant piece of theatre.
On the Sunday I saw Kneehigh Theatre’s Rapunzel, this year’s Battersea Arts Christmas show, a newspaper reported the investigation into a shop-assistant’s murder by an obsessed boyfriend. The coincidence of emotions, though not a direct parallel, reminds how the folk-tales since prettified into pantomime-stories identified and explored fears and terrors which found expression, in days before psychology and social studies, in stories of abuse, sexuality and oppression.

This is reinforced by casting Mike Shepherd as Mother Gothel, the herbalist who finds an abandoned baby and brings her up under the name of the rapunzel plant where the child was found. Ever since John Fowles’ The Collector, or Kathy Bates’ formidably sinister “No 1 fan” in Misery it’s been clear how impassioned love or admiration can tip over into destructive possessiveness.

Shepherd’s male physique, under surface female guise, adds a sexually predatory element to the possessive mother who enthrones her beloved daughter (not even hers by birth) in a tower, then upon the girl’s escape hunts her with a stalker’s search-and-destroy determination.

Annie Siddons’ script leaves no doubt of the sexual significance of events; it is when a customer mentions that teenage Rapunzel is marriageable that Mother Gothel builds the tower/prison. And the relation between aggressive sex and the power-urge is identified in Shepherd’s doubling as the ducal son Paulo, who seeks to kill his heir-apparent brother.

There’s a lot more incident, which is, spellbindingly, bound together in Emma Rice’s production, one fully in the Kneehigh tradition. This isn’t a pantomime; a couple of attempts at audience-involvement are the least-convincing parts. Yet the company successfully incorporates wildly different, apparently incongruous styles.

Intense feeling jostles theatrical self-awareness; Paul Hunter’s comic explanations of near-irrelevancies somehow meld with startlingly real emotions – Edith Tankus vividly expresses Rapunzel’s delight at meeting lover Patrizio through her keenness over books she’s read. Later, her flare-up when he delays rescuing her feels like happening on a lovers’ quarrel at close quarters in a crowded street.

Played out on (as well as under and over) two platforms surrounded by audience, there’s physical bravura to match the story’s scope. A brilliant event.

Umberto/Pierluigi Ambrosi: Paul Hunter
Patrizio: Pieter Lawman
Mother Gothel/Paulo: Mike Shepherd
Rapunzel: Edith Tankus
Duke of Tuscany/Shark Fantini: James Traherne
Prezzemolina: Kirsty Woodward
Musician: Alex Vann

Director: Emma Rice
Designer: Michael Vale
Lighting: Alex Wardle
Sound: Dominic Bilkey
Music: Stu Barker

2007-01-01 18:27:13