THE LOWER DEPTHS. To 9 June.
London
THE LOWER DEPTHS
by Maxim Gorky new version by Phil Wilmott
Finborough Theatre Finborough Pub 118 Finborough Road SW10 9ED To 9 June 2007
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Sun 3.30pm
Runs 1hr 45min One interval
TICKETS: 0870 4000 838 (24hr credit card; no booking fee)
www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk (reduced ticket price online)
Review: Timothy Ramsden 27 May
Clear and active, but missing the daily trudge of poverty.
Adapter/director Phil Wilmott’s used two versions of Gorky’s script plus his story Creatures that Once were Men for this production. Gorky shares little of the sun that shines on Chekhov in modern British theatre. Not that he’s Chekhov’s equal, but he deserves to come more out of the shadow; as he did in the 1970s with the Royal Shakespeare Company’s revivals at the Aldwych.
Now, with the Finborough leading the way and the South Bank following (with Gorky’s Philistines)), perhaps a patch of sun is coming his way again. This play, set in a provincial Russian doss-house – the lower depth of society – as the 20th-century dawns, shows the cruelty of those with power at the bottom of the heap, and the mix of illusion and tenacity on which the powerless survive.
It starts with a woman’s death, but there’s little sympathy to spare. This is a world where fine feelings have no place. Sexual desire is the only force that diverts greed and need. People manipulate and exploit others. Failings are openly admitted: these are people with nothing but the breath in their bodies to lose.
Amongst them comes Richard Gofton’s old idealist, but he achieves little beyond talking. People settle for what they can get or for living without it. If that sounds like Chekhov, it’s Chekhov on the edge of subsistence.
Performances vary in The Steam Industry’s production. Gofton makes his mark, Ursula Mohan’s elderly Widow grumbles or laughs as her defence against the world, while Olivia Macdonald and Richard Sandells show respective coldness and superciliousness in their sexual standoff.
Wilmott directs a brisk version, pointing the activity: there’s many a grim moment here, but never a dull one. Yet this briskness makes these lives with nowhere to go almost too interesting, and defuses the Traveller’s attempts to bring enlightenment. It’s an impression increased by the tiny stage, which necessitates actors continually entering or leaving for their scenes.
No doubting, though, the half-light in which Hansjorg Schmidt confines them, or the sense of an under-ground world in Nicky Bunch’s featureless set, and Nell Knudsen’s costumes of the poor.
Baron: Andrew Colley
Policeman James Folan
Prostitute: Victoria Gee
Old Traveller: Richard Gofton
Card Player: Dean Kelly
Bereved Man: Scott McBain
Landlady: Olivia Macdonald
Widow: Ursula Mohan
Furrier: Peter G Reed
Actor: Richard Sandells
Doss House Skivvy: Louise Shuttleworth
Thief: Charlie Watts
Director: Phil Wilmott
Designer: Nicky Bunch
Lighting: Hansjorg Schmidt
Costume: Nell Knudsen
2007-06-02 23:39:30