WIVES AS THEY WERE, AND MAIDS AS THEY ARE. To 4 October.
Bury St Edmunds/Basingstoke.
WIVES AS THEY WERE, AND MAIDS AS THEY ARE
by Elizabeth Inchbald.
Theatre Royal To 20 September.
13; 16-18 Sept 7.30pm 11-12; 19-20 Sept 7pm. Mat 13, 17 Sept 2pm.
(7pm performances also include Inchbald’s farce Animal Magnetism).
then Haymarket Theatre Basingstoke 24 September-4 October 2008.
24-26, 30 Sept-1, 4 Oct 7.30pm 27 Sept, 3 Oct 7pm Mat 2, 4 Oct 2pm
Runs 2hr 35min One interval.
TICKETS: 01284 769505.
www.theatreroyal.org (Bury St Edmunds)
01256 844244
www.anvilarts.org.uk (Basingstoke).
Review: Timothy Ramsden 10 September.
Love, money and morals in an invigorating amalgam.
First surprise is when the front painting of a Georgian street rises to reveal modernistic glass cages spread across the Theatre Royal stage. Clearly this second full production of Colin Blumenau’s Restoring the Repertoire from the age of the 1819 Theatre Royal takes a different line from last year’s Black Eyed Susan.
There, design and acting followed the Georgian manner. Here, metaphor governs Kit Surrey’s design, with its combined sense of showing-off and confinement within their public facades by characters in period costume, who pose in their cages like museum exhibits before entering. Acting suggests Regency style but with some noticeable modern intonations and body language.
This 1797 comedy, by local lass Liz Inchbald, opens with men discussing women; a father returned from India under an assumed name finds the daughter who thinks him a stranger, impertinent. A Lord keeps his wife tamely obedient. Young men contrast love and philandering.
Among the women, obedient Lady Priory is set against high-spending Maria Dorrillon and Lady Mary. The gains don’t go all one way. Lady Mary’s silenced mid-gloat as she’s arrested for gambling debts by a black-clad bailiff, the glass cages becoming a dark prison.
Ursula Early gives her a modern manner, as James Wallace provides for the amorously contriving Bronzeley, with his knowing chat to the audience. A layer of cruelty runs trough the Priorys' relationship, though an over-mannered Lady Priory and the infectious temper of John Webb’s husband underplay it.
But it’s Laura Doddington’s spirited, intelligent Maria who really lights up the production. Marrying independence to an 18th-century daughter’s due sentiment (her reconciliation with her father back from India happens in a manner recalling Charles Surface’s with his uncle returned from Australia in Sheridan’s School for Scandal twenty years before), Doddington also matches her character’s free spirit with the strain of indebted incarceration.
It’s notable and right that despite her final shrug of acceptance Maria remains the only one outside the cages where others are trapped in their formal poses. Despite some moments of over-emphasis in performances, Blumenau’s direction is generally admirable, restoring a forceful comic dramatist to the stage.
Sir William Dorrillon: Tim Frances.
Mr Norberry: Michael Burrell.
Stephens/Porter: Karen Elliot.
Lord Priory: John Webb.
Lad Mary Raffle: Ursula Early.
Miss Maria Dorrillon: Laura Doddington.
Sir George Evelyn: Alexander Caine.
Oliver/Nabson: Giles Faulkner.
Lady Priory: Joannah Tincey.
Mr Bronzely: James Wallace.
Director: Colin Blumenau.
Designer: Kit Surrey.
Lighting: Matthew Eagland.
2008-09-11 15:20:27