THE FIGHT FOR BARBARA: till 6 August
Bath
THE FIGHT FOR BARBARA
by D.H. Lawrence
Peter Hall Company at Theatre Royal Bath in rep to 6 August 2003
11am 2 August: 2.30pm 6 August: 7.30pm 1,6 August: BSL Signed: 2 August
Runs 2hr 10min One interval
TICKETS: 01225 448844
Review: Timothy Ramsden 26 July
More self-justification than self-revelation in this abandoned drama of Lawrence's Italian love-life.
Barbara is the poor relation of Peter Hall's Bath season. An unknown play by a writer without the theatrical cachet of other season dramatists Coward, Pinter (and Shakespeare to follow). It's the only show in the season not touring. And it's not even directed by Sir Peter.
It's directed by Thea Sharrock, who is good news. And it is a sort of world premiere. After initial enthusiasm for his account of life in Italy with Frieda Weekley (wife of an academic), Lawrence cast it aside. Only a mutilated version has ever been published or performed. Until now.
It carries a strong sense of self-exculpation. Barbara Tressider's run off with miner-turned-writer Jimmy (did Lawrence, from the Nottinghamshire minefields, determine his working class hero would be Welsh?). Her well-to-do family, mother then stern father, visit to persuade her home, followed by her doctor-husband.
Frederick clearly adores Barbara; but she prefers Jimmy's tempestuousness to pedestal-adoration. Caught between bore and boor, she ends embracing her lover. Peter Mumford's lighting suggests what's in store; the golden glow fades from this last tableau, leaving the pair in an ominously cold shaft.
No Mrs Worthington, Sir Peter has put his daughter, prominently, on the stage. Following her major role in his West End Mrs Warren's Profession Rebecca Hall confirms herself as an alert, intelligent performer, alive to emotional nuances Facial features, if not arms and body, are ever-mobile.
At first she seemed too modern, independent. But as a portrait of the remarkable Frieda, she's fine if some of the vocal tone suggests modern life. But, devoid of this context, the opening scene between Barbara and Jimmy is strange, wit its early morning mouthings of classical references.
Out of context, Jason Hughes' Lawrence self-portrait seems even more self-indulgent than John Osborne's later angry Jimmy. Ann Penfold opens up unbendingly as a mother and William Chubb finds a perfect expression of English conventional thinking faced with overwhelming feeling as the abandoned husband.
If established novelist David Garnett was right to discourage Lawrence over the play, Hall and Sharrock are as right, now, to allow us this rare glimpse.
Jimmy Wesson: Jason Hughes
Francesca: Pandora Colin
Barbara Tressider: Rebecca Hall
Butcher: Benjamin Joiner
Lady Charlcote: Ann Penfold
Sir William Charlcote: Col Farrell
Dr Frederick Tressider: William Chubb
Director: Thea Sharrock
Desdigner: john Gunter
Lighting: Peter Mumford
Sound: Gregory Clarke
2003-07-29 09:46:45