THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE. To 15 May.

Colchester

THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE
by Pierre Marivaux

Mercury Theatre To 15 May 2004
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Thu & Sat 2.30pm
BSL Signed 6 May 7.30pm
Post-show Talk-back 5 May
Runs 2hr 5min One interval

TICKETS 01206 573948
boxoffice@mercurytheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 4 May

Philosophy and fun combined with little loss and much gain.There's no doubling of parts in this production just disguise. Behind it lie politics and love, with two young women disguised as men to enter philosopher Hermocrate's garden. Where their disguise is soon penetrated by almost everyone. Never mind; ladlings of flattery easily uncover desire beneath the intellectual surfaces of Hermocrate, his sister Leontine and their pupil Agis. He's the target of Aspasie, disguised as Monsieur Phocion. But Aspasie's a cover too, for Princess Leonide, who needs to overcome political enmity between her family and her intended's.

Marivaux's 18th century French comedy could come over like a Watteau picture, all delicacy and elegance. Not in Martin Crimp's translation, or Janice Dunn's production with its physical humour, clowning and sudden bursts of aptly titled modern song (Je t-aime, All You Need Is Love, Je Ne Regrette Rien).

Desire makes the garden a place of play rather than reflective musing (there's a touch of the idealistic, soon punctured male world of Love's Labour's Lost to the story), over and around a giant, recumbent statue in Jessica Curtis' cunning mix of elegance and potential untidiness. This benignly contemplative figure sees Roger Delves-Broughton's bespectacled figure gradually lose his intellectual detachment, fraught with anxiety as self-command dissolves through doubts in a clearly-delineated comic performance.

As his sister, the dragon guarding this paradise, Christine Absalom undergoes a major transformation from severity to abandonment. Pinned-back hair flows loose, uptight manner flings itself wide-open, pursed lips transform to broad, lipstick-stained smiles.

Add Timothy Mitchell's student, ditching student bashfulness at the last moment and the comic servants could easily be eclipsed. Yet Toby Longworth's Arlequin finds unaffected comic simplicity, while Tim Freeman's gardener, dim as they come, makes much mercifully not too much of his nonsense-spouting part, intended originally for a well-known improvising clown.

Shuna Snow motors the plot with royal command, contained and charismatic, handling the language with crisp yet fluent precision. She's contrasted by Clare Humphrey's impressionably girlish servant. The role could fade into anonymity, but not in these hands.

This is laugh outloud comedy directed with a clear understanding of how the play displays human nature.

Phocion/Leonide/Aspasie: Shuna Snow
Hermidas/Corine: Clare Humphrey
Arlequin: Toby Longworth
Dimas: Tim Freeman
Agis: Timothy Mitchell
Leontine: Christine Absalom
Hermocrate: Roger Delves-Broughton

Director: Janice Dunn
Designer: Jessica Curtis
Lighting: Helen Morley
Assistant director: Craig Bacon

2004-05-05 07:27:42