THE WATER BABIES. To 22 December.
Scarborough
THE WATER BABIES
by Charles Kingsley adapted by Andrew Pollard.
Stephen Joseph Theatre (McCarthy) To 22 December 2007.
7pm Mat Sat 2pm
Runs 1hr 35min One interval.
TICKETS: 01723 37-541.
www.sjt.uk.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 18 December.
Theatrical inventiveness is the strong suit.
It starts as Dickensian realism and ends in the realm of religious fantasy; Charles Kingsley’s evangelical Christian novel is not mainly about horrid businessmen forcing needy children up chimneys, but the need to purify oneself before becoming worthy, of the pure and heavenly multitude, lightly disguised as the aquatic children of the title.
Like most famous Victorian popular fiction, Kingsley’s story has both narrative and imaginative fascination, being unafraid to take on big slices of life in fictional terms, plus offputting cruelty, which occurs through sentimentality or hefty moralising. The Victorians were a people of covered piano-legs and gleefully-open coffins, with children’s sufferings poured over as objects of sentiment or used as whips to punish them.
There’s something sickly about chimney-sweep’s boy Tom seeing rich girl Ellie as a vision of loveliness in a house where he’s sweeping. His search for moral purification, led by Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby and Mrs Bedonebyasyoudid (the carrot and stick of moral inducement) and his testing mission to The Other End of Nowhere, a place that’s nothing because it’s potentially everything, puts him through agonies that are as burdensome in their way as his physical sufferings earlier in the story. Give him strength; no wonder Kingsley’s brand of religion was muscular Christianity. He mixed it with enthusiasm for Darwin, showing that fiction wedded to any system of thought is bogged-down at birth.
Northern Broadsides’ production, ending its tour in the Stephen Joseph’s smaller auditorium, the end-stage McCarthy, tries to gulp down the hefty moralising as mere story elements. Adam Sunderland’s inventively fast-action production is filled with sudden, vivid images, relying as much on its sound world of violin and brass instruments to create scenes as its simple visual style, built around a large wooden trunk from which musical instruments are produced at the start. This is turned through all angles, becoming a character’s prison at times, defining the space at others.
But the Nordic god-namesake characters spend too much time in the later stages talking about telling a story instead of getting on with doing just that. A case for cuts, and cutting to the chase.
Loki: Kieran Buckeridge.
Fricka: Jill Myers.
Baldur: Andy Cresswell.
Freya: Elisa de Grey.
Hod: Adam Sunderland.
Director: Adam Sunderland.
Lighting: Jason Taylor.
Composer/Musical Director: Kieran Buckeridge.
Costume: Dawn Outhwaite.
Puppetry adviser: Alison McGowan.
2007-12-23 00:12:11