“Impressively staged, but ultimately disappointing”
The Diary of a Teenage Girl is based on the acclaimed graphic novel by Phoebe Gloeckner. Now the thing with graphic novels is the author not only provides the words but also the pictures to allow the reader to interpret the storyline in their own way, yet providing them with the basic look of the characters and settings.
The concept of a graphic novel is therefore much harder to translate into a stage work than say just a novel on its own. Steer away too much from the artist’s original character led drawings and you risk losing fan base. Stick too closely to them, and it’s all a little too safe and predictable. It’s a hard thing to get right.
The film of the work received mainly good reviews, but that genre allowed much more deep exploration of the characters – so whilst sticking to Gloeckner’s original look and feel of 1970s San Francisco, it managed to add an extra dimension making it gritty and real.
The show at the Southwark Playhouse is delivered, as short scenes based around the diary entries of Minnie (Rona Morison). Minnie is only fifteen and in the throws of her sexual awakening, she flirts and ends up in a sexual relationship with Monroe (Jamie Wilkes), her mother’s on-off boyfriend. The play hints that Monroe may have instigated the relationship, but it’s clear Minnie is the one that feels strongest about it.
This could easily be a modern day tale of child abuse and grooming. Delivered as ‘comedy’ it is a little unsettling to watch at times. With her drug taking mother Charlotte (Rebecca Trehearn), oblivious to what’s happening with her daughter, this could also be interpreted as a tale of neglect.
Whilst the original novel is about the sexual awakening of Minnie, there is a lot more content in it than the play shows. This adaptation chooses to focus wholly on the sexual parts of the story and as such fails to give any real background to a lot of the scenes or give us any real in depth understanding of the characters, other than Minnie.
It is impressively staged in ‘The Little’ – a credit to the set, lighting, sound and video designers involved. The actors deliver their lines well, with Rona Morison and Jamie Wilkes being particularly impressive. But ultimately this show is just ‘OK’, rather than anything remarkable. With the content of the novel, it could have been adapted to be something much more gripping and gritty. A little disappointing.
