ROUGH CROSSINGS.

Tour.

ROUGH CROSSINGS
adapted by Caryl Phillips from the book by Simon Schama.

Birmingham Rep, Headlong Theatre, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse, Lyric Hammersmith production.
Runs: 2hr 55min One interval.
Review: Rod Dungate, 18 September 2007 at Birmingham Rep.

Important, interesting, but it doesn’t hang together as a drama.
This adaptation of Shama’s book, ROUGH CROSSINGS, is full of good intentions. It’s a noble idea to try to adapt if for the stage. Unfortunately, although there are fine performances, I could never get over the feeling I was watching something worthy. I was interested, I learnt important history, but I was never engaged; worse, I often felt guilty that I was left, for the most part, unmoved by the production.

Shama’s book tells the huge tale of a group of slaves who join the English army during the American war for independence – the English offer them freedom. But the English, in retreat abandon the ex-slaves in Novia Scotia – a harsh place where they suffer much hardship. One of their number (Thomas Peters) travels to London to fight for better conditions for them. John Clarkson, one of a group of anti-slavery campaigners, agrees to help him. Clarkson sets up the Sierra Leone Company and the Novia Scotia settlers are assisted to move back to Africa and settle in what is aimed to be a society based on democratic principles. However it doesn’t quite work out and there are disputes including about the nature of John Clarkson’s leadership.

And herein lies the problem. Caryl Phillips sprinkles Sharma’s book around the acting space without shaping it to a dramatic medium. He appears to want to include all elements of the book; we see back-story and context acted out for us in painstaking detail; it holds things up. Phillips makes no attempt to treat his adaptation as a drama in its own right and the adaptation lacks focus.

Rupert Goold, who directs, is either unable to focus the work, or has made no attempt to. The first scene, for instance, on board a slave ship, is brutal, yes; but does it help us into the narrative – no. It’s cluttered and somehow muddled. The decision to play the cabin boy, in this day and age, with a young woman actor is simply inept.

I’m still undecided as to whose story we’re seeing the world through. Is it John Clarkson’s? – Ed Hughes gives a fine performance, full of passion, but rendered ineffective by his determination to be fair and above-board. Is the story Thomas Peters’s? Yes, I suspect it is, but this character doesn’t really emerge as the main story until near the interval – too late. Patrick Robinson gives a strong and dangerous performance – we spend our time wanting him to compromise but knowing that he shouldn’t.

Isaac: Peter Bankole.
Eliza Sharp: Miranda Colchester.
David George: Peter De Jersey.
Johnson / Sergeant Davy / Officer: Ian Drysdale.
Henry De Mane: Dave Fishley.
Thomas Clarkson: Andy Frame.
William Sharp / Redcoat / Lieutenant: Rob Hastie.
Phyllis George: Dawn Hope.
John Clarkson: Ed Hughes.
captain / Cornwallis / Falconbridge: Mark Jax.
Ship’s Boy / Anna Maria Falconbridge: Jessica Lloyd.
Granville Sharp: Michael Matus.
Sally Peters: Wunmi Mosaku.
James Somerset: Ben Okafor.
Thomas Peters: Patrick Robinson.
Buck Slave / Sierra Leone Settler: Daniel Williams.

Director: Rupert Goold.
Designer: Laura Hopkins.
Lighting: Paul Pyant.
Sound/Composer: Adam Cork.
Video/Projection: Lorna Heavey
Movement: Liz Ranken.
Assistant director: Vik Sivalingam
Assistnat designer: Simon Kenny.

2007-09-19 14:35:42