THE CHILDREN'S HOUR. To 5 April.
Manchester.
THE CHILDREN’S HOUR
by Lillian Hellman.
Royal Exchange Theatre To 5 April 2008.
Mon-Fri 7.30pm Sat 8pm Mast Wed 2.30pm & Sat 4pm.
Runs 2hr 35min One interval.
Tickets: 0161 833 9833.
www.royalexchane.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 21 March.
Mounting involvement in the story of a girl whose every word is a lie – including ‘and’ and ‘but’.
A girl who lies to keep out of trouble, thereby ruining lives around her, fooling responsible adults with untruths that evoke their deep fears and using her power over another, innocent teenage girl to pursue a way which takes events through an offstage trial. In the longer-term, it’s a pity for Lillian Hellman’s 1934 play that Arthur Miller was to write The Crucible just under 20 years later.
For Miller gave those ingredients a wider resonance between different forms of Puritanism in late 17th-century America and the play’s own mid-century times. Hellman digs less deeply into the minds of her victims, but this was a first play and young Mary Tilford’s hit-and-miss allegations against the two women running the private school she attends have their own compulsion.
Apart from one scene set in the comfortable home of Amelia Tilford, who sets the accusations flying with the best of intentions, designer Liz Ascroft sets the action on a bare, raised platform that’s initially crowded with girls at work, and which ends up with a few wooden chairs tipped on their side after allegations of lesbianism have emptied Karen Wright and Martha Dobie’s school of pupils.
A bleak map of the world is dully outlined on the floor, widening the play’s personal story. But Sarah Frankcom’s production works best when performances are at their most contained. Maxine Peake’s Karen is a fine portrayal of someone innocently confident until disaster strikes from nowhere, then puzzled, her hand playing nervously at her chest; still articulate and dignified.
Charlotte Emmerson gives her companion in pedagogy and calumny less serenity from the start; unlike her friend, Martha has no lover but frustrated desires. These are rather obviously signalled in her hairstyle, clothing and manner. June Watson gives credence through straight-backed dignity to someone who could be an unsympathetic cipher. And Flora Spencer-Longhurst’s honest yet manipulated school-girl is vivid.
Frankcom’s production might have curtailed a tendency to over-explicitness in some other performances. It takes time for Hellman’s action to mount in intensity but, the later scenes – particularly the confrontation between Peake and Watson - have undoubted intensity.
Peggy Rogers: Niamh Quinn.
Mrs Lily Mortar: Jan Ravens.
Evelyn Munn: Alice Haig.
Helen Burton/Grocery Boy: Lisa Livingstone.
Lois Fisher: Beth Cooke.
Catherine Deane: Lorna Craig.
Rosalie Wells: Flora Spencer-Longhurst.
Mary Tilford: Kate O’Flynn.
Karen Wright: Maxine Peake.
Martha Dobie: Charlotte Emmerson.
Dr Joseph Cardin: Milo Twomey.
Agatha: Anni Domingo.
Mrs Amelia Tilford: June Watson.
Pupils: Katie Collier, Nicola Day, Clare Flanagan, Siobhan Murphy, Caitlin Thorburn, Faustine Zweigenbgaum.
Director: Sarah Frankcom.
Designer: Liz Ascroft.
Lighting: Mick Hughes.
Sound: Pete Rice.
Music: Jamie Norton.
Choreographer: Lea Anderson.
Dialect: Jan Haydn Rowles.
Assistant director: Rania Jumaily.
2008-04-01 01:53:04