THE STARS LOOK DOWN. To 20 June.
Tour
THE STARS LOOK DOWN
by Alex Ferguson adapted from A.J. Cronin
NTC Theatre on tour to 21 June 2003 - further touring in autumn 2003 and spring 2004
Runs 2hr 15min One interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 30 May at Theatre Royal Dumfries
Strong dose of melodramatic politics from Dr Cronin's casebook.Political theatre either hits you with issues, casting character aside as an irrelevance spun out of bourgeois individualism, or thumps you with concern for the fate political systems force on sympathetic individuals.
Alex Ferguson points up the politics, but he's faithful to A.J. Cronin's 1930s humanism. Mine-owner Barrass is hard-faced and duplicitous; the system's on his side, exonerating him with almost Archeresque fragrance after his old workings have flooded the new, causing numerous workers' deaths.
But the play focuses on the rising tide of youth. Talented football-playing miner (and minor) Hughie might be destined by the rules of tear-jerking never to play his match, and young Jenny Sunley, swinging between whichever young man momentarily offers either material respectability or, failing that, a good time out on the town, is good as a trap to aspirant teacher and trade-unionist Davey Fenwick.
But while lives, and loves, go awry in the way of such stories, Gillian Hambleton's production gives an unspoken moment of hope. 23 year old Hilda Barrass wants to live a useful life. Her wealthy father wants her as a feminine ornament. She walks aside, and looks down where Davey's reading a book. They're not in the same 'scene' realistically. But the link's suggested visually; if two such people could meet, they'd form a powerful union.
Ferguson seems to adapt skilfully (doubtless Cronin's novel would fill out detail, but it's never missed). He frames the story with an election result, Davey standing against his nemesis, the individualistic, pleasure-seeker careerist Joe Gowlan. We never hear who wins, but the show's success is that by the end you know who you're rooting for.
Hambleton uses the skeletal platform stage with versatility, creating vivid images of mining, and easily incorporating the tense climax as the men, never aware how they've been deliberately endangered, struggle to safety then settle to their fate. There's room for the acting to gain detail, but it was already amazingly forceful at the second public performances - the other side of the country from the previous night.
Joe Gowlan/Arthur Barrass: Alan Park
Jenny Sunley/Hughie Fenwick: Kim Evans
Martha Fenwick/Hilda Barrass/Ada Sunley: Jackie Fielding
Davie Fenwick/Will Kinch: Ross Walton
Robert Fenwick/Richard Barrass: Stephen Wedd
Director: Gillian Hambleton
Designer: Cath Young
Music: Jim Kitson
2003-06-05 17:01:14