THE BODIES. To 30 July.
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
THE BODIES
by Peter Flannery
Live Theatre To 30 July 2005
Tue-Sat 8pm Sun 4pm Mat 2, 27 July 2pm
BSL Signed 2 July 2pm, 14 July
Runs 2hr 30min One interval
TICKETS: 0191 232 1232
www.live.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 28 June
Therese Raquin - again in a betwixt-and-between production, in style and setting.Live Theatre seems proud of having won local-bred script-writer Peter Flannery back to the theatre as their Artist Emeritus. Though why any new writing company should particularly celebrate yet another adaptation, from one of European literature's most dramatised novels, is unaccountable. Flannery's promising another play during his 2-year stint; maybe that will be a fully original work.
An adapter's can do what they like with the original, so long as they end up with fully-fledged drama. This creakily theatrical piece mixes overt theatricality with patches of straightforward realism, plus inconsistent use of retired detective Michaud as Narrator. But Therese Raquin was the novel to which Emile Zola attached his statement of Naturalism; it demands a bold response, beyond this mishmash of narrative convenience.
Maggie Norris's production employs outdated stagecraft, though it can have strong momentary impact. Camille, seen crawling toad-like down a gangway at the start, as he will when dead, sets up the grim mood of the Raquin family in their small shop down a Parisian side-street (this version uses Tyneside accents but keeps Zola's Seine-side names). Flannery notes how mollycoddling by his mother has made Camille a mix of arrogance and fawning. Craig Conway's idiotically grinning, childish Camille fits the description well.
There's a fine Therese from Jill Halfpenny, who catches the lowly country cousin's inarticulacy and subservience. Her silences express distaste, preparing for the stabbing harshness against Camille, the joy in sex with Laurent, edged with danger in the house, and later sourness towards her lover.
Add Anny Toibin's redoubtable mother, stern-looking but fond and taken in by appearances, and the production looks good. But Ben Porter's Laurent is too monotone to explain his allure to Therese, too clearly self-seeking to fool even Mme Raquin. And, for all Colin MacLachlan's grizzled skill, the play doesn't dramatise Michaud, an ex-detective who suspects, becomes certain of his convictions but does nothing, uses no ex-contacts, to get the killers convicted.
Long before the end, repeated shifting of the gangway sections, though moodily covered by Katherine Gotts' score, has become wearisome. Overall, it's not bad but there's little to shout about.
Michaud: Colin MacLachlan
Mrs Raquin: Anny Tobin
Camille: Craig Conway
Therese: Jill Halfpenny
Laurent: Ben Porter
Chorus: Susan French, Christina Dawson, Kara Grant
Director: Maggie Norris
Designer/Costume: Simon Daw
Lighting: Philip Gladwell
Sound: Crispian Covell
Composer: Katherine Gotts
Movement: Lynne Page
2005-07-03 01:01:47