THE DAUGHTER-IN-LAW. To 23 September.
Watford
THE DAUGHTER-IN-LAW
by D H Lawrence
Palace Theatre To 23 September 2006
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Wed 2.30pm & Sat 3pm
Audio-described 23 Sept 3pm
Captioned 16 Sept 3pm
Runs 2hr 10min One interval
TICKETS: 01923 225671
www.watfordpalacetheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 13 September
Glum sort of an evening, really.
There are good performances in Lawrence’s strong drama (his plays have the intensity, without the upfront loins, of his novels). But Watford’s revival is strangulated by its direction and design.
Director Kirstie Davis has let Jessica Curtis repeat the mistake made when they worked on The Beauty Queen of Leenane here. Both plays require a realistic surface (Lawrence’s is realistic through-and-through). Both place people with intense dislikes or desires in frustratingly close, claustrophobic proximity.
Yet both times Curtis has opened up the scene; there’s little point talking about Nottinghamshire miners’ poverty in 1912 when their homes have the spaciousness suggested in this Daughter-in-Law. Lack of defined doorways muffled the end of Leenane; here it forces awkward stylisation on actors with every arrival at the cottage of Mrs Gascoigne, or that of her son Luther and his aspiring wife.
Lawrence focuses on particular relationships, yet the set’s looming wheel from a mine-shaft’s winding-gear and spaces between tall sections of wall seems made for a social play in the manner of Galsworthy or Toller. And the actors are left in a comparative void. No wonder Joanna Brookes’ Mrs Purdy doesn’t build up much force as she works towards her bombshell news to Luther’s mother.
The dialect sits uncomfortably in some performances; care for accent often overrides rhythmic flexibility, leaving the actors sounding uncomfortable in speaking (as opposed to characters' discomfort with what, at times, they say). Positioning of characters suffers too; amid the space there are static groupings, while any moment set by furniture round the stage’s rim loses impact.
Lawrence examines how a dominating mother can stifle her son’s ability to feel affection for other women. Yet Gwyneth Powell’s Mrs Gascoigne is as reasonable, good-humoured a person as might be, given her circumstances. James Chalmers makes something of Luther’s purposeless young brother. But neither his nor Luther’s acts of violence have the right context to make greatest impact.
It’s left to Jack Sandle’s Luther and Charlotte Emmerson as his wife, the white-clad, strong-feeling Minnie, as she looks for a response from her husband, to push the evening beyond dour frigidity.
Mrs Gascoigne: Gwyneth Powell
Joe: James Chalmers
Mrs Purdy: Joanna Brookes
Minnie: Charlotte Emmerson
Luther: Jack Sandle
Director: Kirstie Davis
Designer: Jessica Curtis
Lighting: Natasha Chivers
Voice coach: Rory Feeney
Assistant director: Katie Henry
2006-09-14 11:50:29