One of the most awkward tasks a reviewer
faces is coming in on the final part of a trilogy. On this occasion,
however, questions of the “Who
are
all those little people with hairy feet?” kind are mercifully avoided.
In adapting George Eliot’s 1870s “Study Of Provincial Life” for the
stage, Geoffrey Beevers has divided the novel not across the narrative,
but along it: instead of chronological episodes one, two and three, we
are given accounts which follow the length of the novel in each of
three main plot strands.
Dorothea’s
Story and
The Doctor’s Story
have already premièred, but return in repertoire from mid-December,
with (one aspect of trilogy-watching which has not been eschewed)
opportunities to see all three parts on a single day.
In at least one core way, this strand differs from its predecessors.
Where Dorothea Brooke and Dr Tertius Lydgate found their idealism and
ambition thwarted by their respective marriages and had to struggle to
rediscover themselves, the dramatic engine here is the
absence of marriage: the similarly
resolute Mary Garth cannot bring herself to accept Fred Vincy until he
has made something of himself, not in a material sense but in terms of
realising his personal potential. The getting of wisdom serves as a
form of courtship in itself.
Beevers the adapter is assiduous in preserving Eliot’s narratorial
voice: a great help, as much of its dry wit all but passed me by on my
first student reading of the novel decades ago. He and Beevers the
director have taken a hint from David Edgar’s adaptation of
Nicholas Nickleby, with performers
not quite completing each other’s sentences in narrative segments but
certainly alternating in short order. The cast of eleven work as a
strong ensemble, with only Ben Lambert and Daisy Ashford in the title
roles not taking multiple parts; indeed, both sets of parents are
played by Michael Lumsden and Lucy Tregear, leading now and again to
the swift donning of a topcoat or doffing of a mob-cap. Other notable
turns include those of Jamie Newall as the gleefully declining Mr
Featherstone and Christopher Ettridge in a clutch of roles.
I get the impression that my appreciation would have been enhanced by
having watched certain scenes already played in the ”preceding” parts
reproduced here with differing emphasis, but not that the viewing
experience specifically suffered for this want. All the evidence is
that this project has borne considerate and lively fruit.
Written for the Financial
Times.