THE PROVOKED WIFE. To 26 July.
London
THE PROVOKED WIFE
by Sir John Vanbrugh
Southwark Playhouse To 26 July 2003
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat 19,26 July 2.30pm
Fund-raising Gala 9 July
TICKETS: 020 7620 3494
Review: Timothy Ramsden 5 July
Energetic and drawing parallels between then and now this is, for all the limits in some performances, a vigorous revival.Paul Jepson's production opens with a swaggering mix of modern dress and 17th century. The company begins a formal dance to a courtly air, suddenly switching to modern sounds and moves. It represents the confidence with which two externally different, essentially similar, societies of lads and women are successfully co-joined.
Jess Curtis's set uses the small stage cleverly, anonymous sliding panels opening on a sliver of upper stage suggesting larger spaces. It's a world of affluent smoothies, women dressed in bright designs or, for a French servant/PA a tight-fitting black number that's as chic and sexy. Men dress cool, subdued suits worn with laid-back self-certainty, far from businesslike neutrality, or with a lover's keenness.
Written in 1697, Vanbrugh's central character, Sir John Brute prods his wife to infidelity and an assignation in Mayfair's top-notch red-light district by his mental cruelty. Simon Merrells is occasionally over-busy and hasn't control enough for his drag drunk scene. But it's an inventive, commanding performance; he's marked out as an oaf by red braces and social exclusion as early as the opening dance. His gleeful insults and self-assured gestures, undermined when drink or sleep take over, make this a rewarding comic characterisation.
Other acting is variable; given the amount of plotting to get through, an interval and slightly longer playing time might have helped more detail emerge without spoiling the apt briskness. Some slightly hurried speech is the only problem with Jane Robbins' understandably troubled wife, the play's most morally complex character sympathetically portrayed.
She has good support from Iona Grant's Belinda, as does Jane Galloway's at times fierce but somehow under-powered motor of revenge from Estelle Morgan's pertly pointed Mademoiselle (Jepson craftily introduces mobile 'phones to help them keep in touch while giving a sense of Mademoiselle on the plotting prowl).
The male lovers are adequate if sometimes stilted and rarely exciting. Mike Hayley's often hilarious cameos tend to an - often apt - official stiffness. And he has a rich, dry-gravel voice especially suited to his court Justice. By the final dance linking the ages more closely than its predecessor - this production, for all the acting's sometimes more vigorous than subtle, has successfully made its thematic cross-era point.
Lady Fanciful: Jane Galloway
Belinda: Iona Grant
Lovewell/Tailor/Constable/Porter/Justice/Razor: Mike Hayley
Heartfree: Edward MacLiam
Constant: David Marshallsea
Sir John Brute: Simon Merrells
Mademoiselle: Estelle Morgan
Lady Brute: Jane Robbins
Director: Paul Jepson
Designer/Costume: Jess Curtis
Lighting: Sven Ortel
Sound: Carolyn Downing
Choreographer: Claire Buss
2003-07-06 22:49:40