THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING. To 20 October.
London.
THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING
by Carson McCullers.
Young Vic To 20 October 2007.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat & 26 Sept, 10,17 Oct 2.30pm.
Audio-described 13 Oct 2.30pm.
Captoned 17 Oct 7.30pm.
Runs 2hr 30min One interval.
TICKETS: 020 7922 2920.
www.youngvic.org
Review: Timothy Ramsden 17 September.
Finely-played relationship provides a strong centre.
Newspapers are reporting early atom bomb trials - a great scientific advance - but explosions in the southern White Addams home in 1945 are more personal. Father calls in between bouts at his store, his racism a casual part of the anger lying just under his surface. There’s no mother, but a fine substitute, so far as nearly-13 year old Frankie’s concerned, in the Black cook Berenice. Frankie’s cut her hair short, close to a boy’s style as she’s made her name. In the absence of other family, her cousin John Henry, half her age, keeps visiting from next door.
This trio are the heart of Carson McCullers’ 1950 play (from her 1946 novel). Outside it, Frankie doesn’t belong. She’s turned down for a local girls’ society and longs, impossibly, to be involved in – a “member of” – the imminent wedding between her soldier-brother Jarvis and Janice.
Frankie’s so desperate to belong, she wants to change her name to something beginning “Ja…”, like theirs. The lovers are kind enough, flitting in and out, but remain distant from Frankie’s passion, unable to understand her early-adolescent intensity. Nor, from the other side of the age spectrum, can John Henry.
Only Berenice understands, answering Frankie’s questions about her own past loves and husbands with reflective humour, until events force the trio apart. McCullers’ central act explores this relationship most deeply, its humanity offsetting the empty spaciousness of Robert Innes Hopkins’ set, a garden and once-fine room with dirty, scrawled-upon walls.
Matthew Dunster’s near-perfect Young Vic revival faces the problem of how to divide the slow-accumulating 3-acts. Having one interval, after the second act’s physical and psychological darkness, means the play’s greatest intensity comes just when concentration’s at its most stretched.
That apart, Dunster paces the action beautifully, from Frankie’s first energetic run-on to jazz drumming, with people bustling around the backyard, to the quiet conclusion. Flora Spencer-Longhurst’s Frankie mixes a near-thirteen year old’s fast, inquisitive energy with her agony and frustration, while Portia’s performance movingly invests Berenice – not the “stout motherly” figure of McCullers’ stage-direction but a composedly elegant person - with sympathetic intelligence.
Berenice Sadie Brown: Portia.
Frankie Addams: Flora Spencer-Longhurst.
John Henry West: Ethan Brooke/Theo Stevenson/James Wilson.
Jarvis: Cian Barry.
Janice: Sarah Goldberg.
Mr Addams: Richard Brake.
Mrs West: Daniele Lydon.
Helen Fletcher: Katie Angelou.
Doris: Kate Louise Williams
Sis Laura: Alibe Parsons.
T T Williams: Anthony Waren.
Honey Camden Brown: John Macmillan.
Barney MacKean: Henry McMorrow.
Director: Matthew Dunster.
Designer: Robert Innes Hopkins.
Lighting: Philip Gladwell.
Sound: Paul Arditti.
Composer: Olly Fox.
Dialect coach: Sally Hague.
Assistant director: Sarah Tipple.
2007-09-20 08:57:59