Tag Archives: Fiona Hampton

THE FORSYTE SAGA

★★★★★

Park Theatre

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THE FORSYTE SAGA at Park Theatre

★★★★★

“flawlessly executed under Josh Roche’s stylish direction that adds a unique clarity to the sweeping story”

John Galsworthy’s “The Forsyte Saga” earned him the Nobel Prize for literature. Its epic chronicle of the leading members of an extended upper-middle-class Victorian family has understandably been adapted many times for cinema and television. It is a brave undertaking to adapt the extensive series of novels for the stage, especially for a society that, a century later, will undoubtedly balk at the societal norms embedded in the period. Shaun McKenna and Lin Coghlan have woven together the various strands of the story into a truly magnificent two-part stage play that presents the full meaning and intention of Galsworthy’s original with aesthetic truthfulness. While also allowing it to resonate with a thoroughly modern audience and still be relevant to the way we live our lives now.

First things first: the logistics. The two parts of the play are showing in rep. “Part 1: Irene” and “Part 2: Fleur”. On select days both parts can be seen back-to-back. The programme notes express the hope that ‘each play stands alone, but the experience is far richer if you see both’. More than a clever marketing ploy, the statement is partly true. Yes, they do stand alone (Part 1 more so than Part 2), but it’s not just a far richer experience – it is absolutely essential to see both. For the simple reason that they are both unmissable. What’s more – view them in the correct order. It’s a bit of a marathon coming in collectively at just under five hours, but every moment counts. The shift in the dynamics of the second part involves more investment from the audience, but the whole effect is one of a four act play rather than two independent two-act pieces (you’ll have a couple of hours in between so check out the delicious pizza they serve in the bar).

“The Forsyte Saga” is a male dominated story, yet from the outset this is subverted. The women are very much at its heart here. Pumping that heart is Fleur, played with a subversive passion by Flora Spencer-Longhurst. She introduces, narrates and guides us through the generations – initially the ghost of what is yet to come, but as the events catch up with her, she steps fully into the story. The device is flawlessly executed under Josh Roche’s stylish direction that adds a unique clarity to the sweeping story. Scenes overlap, and with little more than a turn of the head we are transported to a different time and location. Anna Yates’ set consists of nothing but a plush red carpet and matching velvet curtains that draw back to reveal the plain brickwork of the playing space. The vivid picture that the performers plant in our imaginations with such conviction ensures that the bare wall becomes a country house, the rolling countryside, a ballroom, a city street, the riverside… well, you get the picture.

Having got to grips with the multiplicity of characters, the main action follows Soames Forsyte (Joseph Millson). His newly acquired wealth and status give him a self-imposed right to want to own everything he sees, including his wife Irene (Fiona Hampton). Millson drags his character deeper and deeper into this delusional obsession with a remarkable performance that ultimately grabs our sympathy by the throat. Irene consistently gains the upper hand, resisting Soames’ grasping intention, and Hampton brilliantly draws us into her world of male entitlement that she refuses to submit to. The domesticity swiftly becomes uncomfortable to watch (remember that marital rape only became illegal in 1992). Yet everybody is a victim in their own way. Andy Rush as the tragic love interest of Irene encapsulates the snowballing effect of action and reaction.

Most of the cast multi-roll, and as the period shifts from the late nineteenth century to the nineteen-twenties in Part 2, the aging of the characters is passed on to other members of the company with a smoothness of transition that puts Doctor Who’s regenerations to shame. At times it is hard to reconcile the mind to the fact that only nine actors are portraying such a vast league of gentlemen and ladies. I would love to highlight each performance just as I would like to lay out each of the plot twists and turns, but in the interests of column-inches, I will instead simply urge you to discover it for yourself.

Except to say, though, that Spencer-Longhurst’s performance is the cornerstone. Barely offstage for five hours, her journey is epically moving. The daughter of Soames, she is a woman ahead of her time, childlike and mischievous but ultimately unable to escape her father’s gene pool. Forbidden love thwarted; she settles for Michael Mont (Jamie Wilkes in fine form as an escapee from P.G. Wodehouse). However, her love still lies with her cousin Jon (Andy Rush – unrecognisable from his other ill-fated characters). Here Spencer-Longhurst pulls out all the stops of her versatility as she crumples into a carbon copy of her father, with a desire to repossess Jon that borders on obsession and selfishness. The past is uncovered and tragically recycled. Roche’s staging again employs remarkable devices to enhance the poignancy, with Alex Musgrave’s lighting steering us towards a strikingly emotive climax. Likewise, Max Pappenheim’s compositions and sound design echo the journey made through time and through the characters’ swooping arcs.

We have travelled from 1886 to 1927 in the course of an afternoon and evening. Two plays, two generations. One company. To describe it as a period drama is a disservice. It crosses all ages. Within the Forsyte dynasty we see how each generation is the product of its time, but also the product of its predecessors. Watching it in 2024 we also get a sense of that indestructible link to our ancestors. We may like to think it is broken, but splinters still pierce the skin of our modern-day vulnerabilities. McKenna and Coghlan have skilfully and powerfully transposed an outdated and convoluted storyline into a modern and intimate theatre, finding both humour in the humourless and pathos in the unforgiving. In the hands of the excellent ensemble cast, it is a must see. You could get by on seeing just ‘Part 1: Irene’, or ‘Part 2: Fleur’. But don’t settle for merely ‘getting by’. Indulge yourself in the whole saga.


THE FORSYTE SAGA at Park Theatre

Reviewed on 19th October 2024

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Mitzi De Margary

 

 


 

 

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

AUTUMN | ★★½ | October 2024
23.5 HOURS | ★★★ | September 2024
BITTER LEMONS | ★★★½ | August 2024
WHEN IT HAPPENS TO YOU | ★★★★★ | August 2024
THE MARILYN CONSPIRACY | ★★★★ | June 2024
IVO GRAHAM: CAROUSEL | ★★★★ | June 2024
A SINGLE MAN | ★★★★ | May 2024
SUN BEAR | ★★★ | April 2024
HIDE AND SEEK | ★★★★ | March 2024
COWBOYS AND LESBIANS | ★★★★ | February 2024
HIR | ★★★★ | February 2024
LEAVES OF GLASS | ★★★★ | January 2024

THE FORSYTE SAGA

THE FORSYTE SAGA

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Touching the Void

Touching the Void

★★★★

Duke of York’s Theatre

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Touching the Void

Touching the Void

Duke of York’s Theatre

Reviewed – 15th November 2019

★★★★

 

“does not lack suspense, or imaginative touches in the staging”

 

Adapting Joe Simpson’s epic tale of survival on the Peruvian Siula Grande mountain for the theatre is no easy task. But then playwright David Greig, like mountaineer Simpson, is not the kind of man to avoid a challenge just because it’s difficult, or has never been done before. Nevertheless, theatres, like mountains, are well known for the unexpected ways in which they can put obstacles in the paths of even the most gifted. This revival of Greig’s play at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London just misses a chance at greatness.

Greig was invited to produce a play script of Touching the Void after director Tom Morris, inspired by Simpson’s book, and the BAFTA winning film of the same title, wanted to adapt it for the stage. Sensibly opting against a naturalistic interpretation, Greig wrote instead a “mythic reading of a real event”. He changes the sequence of events—beginning instead with an imagined wake for Joe after he has been left for dead on the mountain. Greig also brings on board a new character, Sarah, Joe’s sister, who in reality had died some years before Joe and climbing partner Simon Yates make their climb (Greig obtained Simpson’s permission to write in Sarah). These changes serve as powerful attention getters; Sarah herself becomes an important part of Joe’s fight for survival in the second half of the show. And then there is the non-human force, the Void, which could be interpreted as the mythic antagonist against which Joe and Simon must battle to win the mountain, and live to tell the tale.

Touching the Void does not lack suspense, or imaginative touches in the staging. Watching actors Josh Williams (Joe) and Angus Yellowlees (Simon) climb all over Ti Green’s ingenious set is exciting, though the climbing accolades should probably go to Fiona Hampton (Sarah) when she takes an impromptu climbing lesson by scrambling up a “mountain face” composed entirely of pub tables and chairs haphazardly attached to the wall downstage right. It’s moments like these that emphasise the theatricality of director Tom Morris’ production, but they can only do so much in holding the audience’s attention throughout the entire play.

The choice of venue for this revival reveals the weaknesses in the script. Even with the actual proscenium arch removed, the Duke of York’s is still a problematic space for a play that cries out to be performed, at the very least, on a more flexible stage. Script wise, it’s clever of Greig to use the character of Sarah to propel the drama forward (she is the one that insists her brother cannot be dead, and goes in search of him) but the play still devolves into a belaboured enactment of Joe’s painful struggle back to base camp in the second, with Sarah becoming a product of his fevered imaginings as he hovers between life and death. From a seat in the stalls at the Duke of York’s, it is hard to see Joe in the second half, because he spends so much time flat on the stage floor. Greig’s dramatisation of the Void, a force that cannot be seen even though we see its effects on the characters, is a brilliant touch, but the ethereal nature of its presence makes it an unreliable source for narrative clarification. And finally, it is impossible to avoid the distancing effect that a picture frame stage places upon audiences watching actors come to grips simultaneously with intimate scenes set against vast panoramas.

 

Reviewed by Dominica Plummer

Photography by Michael Wharley

 


Touching the Void

Duke of York’s Theatre until 29th February

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:
Rosmersholm | ★★★★ | May 2019
The Son | ★★★★★ | September 2019

 

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