THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE.

London

THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE
by James M Cain adapted by Andrew Rattenbury

Playhouse Theatre
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Wed & Sat 3pm
Runs 2hr 35min One interval

TICKETS: 0870 060 6631 (Booking fee)
www.theambassadors.com/playhouse
Review: Timothy Ramsden 6 June

Moody theatricality overwhelming character in telling the story.Seen last year in Leeds, this production arrives in London with the addition of Val Kilmer as Frank Chambers, the itinerant who lands at a lonely diner to fall into a passionate, murderous relationship with the owner's bored wife. Her husband gets slugged on the head, but it's the lovers who slug out the emotional punches. James M Cain's hard-boiled noir novel works out Shakespeare's Richard II prediction that the love of evil men converts to fear, that fear to hate .

The production reunites director Lucy Bailey and actor Charlotte Emmerson after their success with another intense-passion story, Tennessee Williams' Baby Doll. Again, there's strikingly theatrical design, lighting and music, though here it often becomes self-conscious.

For all the externals of passion, the grasping and clinching - at one peak of violence, masturbation - there's little sexual chemistry evident between Emmerson's Cora and Kilmer's Frank. Neither in Nick's murder nor, for all the shouting and pouting, as they turn on each other do the physical outpourings have much emotional underpinning. The most intense desire is that of Keith Bartlett's prosecutor Sackett to see the criminal pair hang.

There's plentiful use of Bunny Christie's 2-layer set, including the diner's sign swinging and fusing in a storm with an electricity that's being strived for below, but most obviously the way Nick's car, breaking through the roof when it's pushed over the edge with his dead body in it, remains looming over the lovers, its headlights pinning Frank on the floor during Sackett's interrogation.

Bartlett's opponent is defence lawyer Katz (a fine double for Joe Alessi as this sleek operator, after his homespun, shufflingly happy Nick). In the low-lit claustrophobia of police-cells and courtroom, financial shenanigans show money making the difference between freedom and the chair. This is the show's strongest part. Back at the diner, things are less clear. There are fewer tables, and we never see anyone buy a meal; yet when a crooked cop comes calling the place is talked of as prosperous. A sign that bright lights and, even, Django Bates' moody guitar-whine score, can't substitute for joined-up storytelling.

Frank Chambers: Val Kilmer
Nick Papadakis/Katz: Joe Alessi
Cora Papadakis: Charlotte Emmerson
State Cop/Jeremies: Mac McDonald
Sackett: Keith Bartlett
Warder/Dawson: Ian Pirie
Kennedy: Aran Bell
Barlow: Adam Rayner
Nurse: Alanis Peart
Cop: Martin Johnston
Cop: Steve Knightly
Madge Allen: Rae Baker

Director: Lucy Bailey
Designer: Bunny Christie
Lighting: Nigel Edwards
Sound: Mic Pool
Music: Django Bates
Dialect coach: William Conacher
Fight director: Renny Krupinski

2005-06-12 15:41:44