THE FISHERMAN AND HIS SOUL. To 22 October.
Tour
THE FISHERMAN AND HIS SOUL
by Oscar Wilde adapted by Simon Corble
Found Theatre Tour to 22 October 2006
Runs 1hr 40min No interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 15 October at The Priestley Bradford
Physical and vocal skill breathe life into Wildean morality.
Say what you like about fashionable society, it brought out the best in Oscar Wilde. The wit and style of his moral problem comedies, and the precision-drilled wit of Earnest, have provided his most popular works. Elsewhere, his bejewelled, self-conscious language now seems mannered and clotted, best approached through discreet adaptations of the airy whimsy in his children’s tales.
Which the story behind this play isn’t. If anything, it’s similar to Wilde’s full-length novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, (also from 1891 and, like Romeo and Juliet, a superb idea trapped in an inferior work). A fisherman falls for a mermaid but to live in her world means having, like merfolk, no soul. For love of her he cuts his soul away, agreeing to meet up with it annually, eventually accompanying it on a journey where he discovers that divorcing soul from love has a corrupting effect.
Simon Corble’s adaptation for Found Theatre occupies a small stage, backed by a canvas sheet and lit by several white spotlights. On the boarded floor, the 3 performers create the Fisherman’s dockside with such minimal, physical theatricality that the action can pass instantaneously from a stormy sea to the calm port, where fish are respectively caught and sold.
This is, roughly, Corble’s first half. If there’s a weakness it’s in the Fisherman and Mermaid’s vocal flexibility and precision. Fortunately, Jack Lord’s Soul (the obvious pun’s there: “I will sell thee my soul./Lemon or Dover?”) brings the necessary vocal strength. For the show’s second half is predominantly verbal – though the long speeches of the Soul’s annual journeyings are accompanied by Lord’s expressive gestural physicality.
He handles the Wildean prose with a rich repertoire of dynamics, tone and vocal registers, and there’s a subtle use of occasional pauses to highlight detail amid these extensive travelogues. It gives the Soul reality, and human sensibilities, in a piece where the relation with the soulless, lovelorn Fisherman shifts between shadow, soul and friend.
This production deserved its Sunday afternoon audience at Bradford’s Priestley, one which in size and concentration would be the envy of many London Fringe venues.
Priest/Soul: Jack Lord
Fisherman: Charlie Brennan
Mermaid/Witch: Catriona Martin
Director/Designer: Simon Corble
2006-10-21 10:42:47