THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING. To 23 March

London

THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING
by Carson McCullers

Attic Theatre Company, Wimbledon Studio Theatre To 23 March 2002
Runs 2hr One interval

TICKETS 020 8540 0362
Review Timothy Ramsden 16 March

The kind of revival that gives theatrical rediscovery a good name.It may not, as play or production, have the force of last year's Young Vic/Salisbury Playhouse revival of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, but this view of a Georgia family at the end of World War II - Death of a Salesman period America - clinches the heart and mind as its central characters come to life.

Jenny Lee's cast may have some rough moments but for the most part there's decent work on Gabriella Csanyi-Wills' beautifully naturalistic kitchen and backyard. It's there, going-on teenage young Frankie sings out her heart to the Addams family Black servant Berenice.

For Frankie it's membership that's vital. Turned down for election to the smart local tennis club, she's determined to gatecrash her brother's wedding, even changing her name to give it the same two opening letters as brother Jarvis and his fiancee Janice.

Louisa Milwood-Haigh brings a piercing directness to Frankie. Much of the time she's in dungarees, making the change to her bright green, bargain-basement dress for the (offstage) wedding a startling moment. Milwood-Haigh captures Frankie's restless, ever-questioning nature and the intensity of the moods she unloads on to the sympathetic, taken-for-granted Berenice.

Half-way through Frankie reads a news story of the atom bomb's explosion. It's a dead-centre symbol of the change that's coming post-war, a violence mirrored locally by young Honey Brown's reefer smoking and attack on a white storekeeper. Later scenes focus increasingly on Berenice, who not only loses Honey to execution, but the young neighbouring lad John Henry to the meningitis she failed to recognise, and finally Frankie herself to a new friend.

It's then the strength of this women, who's buried three husbands, shines through; as does Yvonne Gidden's performance. Unlike Frankie, for whom a problem felt is soon expressed, Berenice copes with grief and loss as parts of life. Her patient dignity shines through as troubles mount and a new world blows away old certainties. Berenice is the one who looks back, and ironically, after all Frankie's complaints of having no-one to belong with, it's the older woman who's left alone, consoling herself in an old, loved song.

Berenice Sadie Brown: Yvonne Gidden
Frankie Addams: Louisa Milwood-Haigh
John Henry West: Oliver Golding/Henry Maloney
Jarvis Addams: Jeff Ashley
Janice/Helen: Tasha Johnson
Mr Addams: Mark Sangster
Mrs West: Heather Rome
TT Williams: Mark Ramsay
Honey Camben Brown: Paul Blackstock

Director: Jenny Lee
Designer: Gabriella Csanyi-Wills
Lighting: Roger Frith
Sound: Anders Sodergren

2002-03-17 22:46:30