THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE. To 19 May.

Manchester

THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE
by Pierre Marivaux translated and adapted by Braham Murray and Katherine Sand

Royal Exchange Theatre To 19 May 2007
Mon-Fri 7.30pm Sat 8pm Mat Wed 2.30pm & Sat 4pm
BSL Signed 12 May 4pm
Runs 1hr 55min Two intervals

TICKETS: 0161 833 9833
www.royalexchange.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 5 May

Keenness to get laughs at the expense of underlying humour.
How strange of the Royal Exchange. Having unnecessarily kept audiences waiting almost 2 hours for an interval in their recent Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, the theatre shoves two intervals into Marivaux’s brief love-debate from 18th-century France.

Admittedly, this side of the Channel the author’s plays can seem interminably verbal, with a series of characters whose mental processes appear to have their hormones under unusual control.

Princess Leonida loves Agis. He’s shut himself away with the philosopher Hermocrates. As no young woman would be allowed to disturb this contemplative plot, Leonida disguises herself as a man. It’s one of drama’s worst-kept secrets, since almost everybody soon works out ‘he’s’ female. So while she’s strutting her male stuff to Hermocrates’ sister Leontina and to Agis himself, Leonida takes on a fake female identity with Hermocrates and the servants.

This is because Leonida’s royal family has been at war with that of Agis. She fears that revealing her identity before she establishes a relationship with the man she loves will destroy her chances. For Marivaux humour lies in characters’ wit as they make progress through this dilemma, decorated with some servant-class joking. Here, that’s John Axon’s stubbily frank gardener and Michael Moreland’s Harlequin, played as a dour Scottish chauffeur.

Director Braham Murray has taken what could be a valuable rehearsal ploy, externalising the impact of sexual desire, and made it his production’s governing idea. Gone is any sense of Leonida’s royalty; her servant Corina, fully in the know, treats her like a friend. They resemble a confident pair of young professionals in city society. For the rest, the play becomes a demo in how love makes the biggest fools of those who try to exclude it from their lives.

Hermocrates and Leontina throw off gravitas for the skipping delight and foolishness of mature people behaving like moon-struck teenagers. Both discover outlandish clothes from somewhere in their wardrobes. Even the scenery joins in, rising phallically to the occasion.

Rae Hendrie’s Leonida is technically skilled, switching deftly from girlish awe to gruff male. But the play’s subtler psycho-emotional waves remain unrevealed below this surface.

Leonida: Rae Hendrie
Corina: Sarah Paul
Hermocrates: Terence Wilton
Leontina: Brigit Forsyth
Agis: Charlie Anson
Dimas: JohnAxon
Harlequin: Michael Moreland

Director: Braham Murray
Designer: Simon Higlett
Lighting: Johanna Town
Sound: Steve Brown

2007-05-07 13:26:21