“As snow cascades onto the audience, they eagerly wave to the snowman and dance in the aisles”
In Raymond Briggs’ popular Christmas classic, a young boy’s snowman comes to life on Christmas Eve. After tiptoeing around the house, midnight feasting and dressing up, James and The Snowman take off on a North Pole adventure. Birmingham Rep’s adaptation of Briggs’ book and Dianne Jackson’s film revives the festive fable with some welcome surprises. The addition of bad-guy, Jack Frost and an ice princess who dance the tango with the snowman may drift from the original story, but this can be excused as the light-hearted rendition captures the attention of the very young audience throughout, despite having no dialogue. Perhaps the most unexpected twist, a giant fruit limbo competition (why not, ay?) has the audience roaring with laughter.
Needless to say, the highpoint of the play is the timeless Walking in the Air flying sequence which ends the first act. It has all who are watching transfixed and brings a whimsical twist with the pair flying over seas, mountains, and a drunken brass band player. The charming dream scene which closes the second act captures the magic of the silent film with childhood innocence. Balletic woodland animals and prancing reindeers with highly detailed costumes create a picturesque wintry scene.
The stage design of Ruari Murchison plays a huge part in transporting the audience to a winter wonderland, with a snow-globe proscenium arch and an idyllic set. As snow cascades onto the audience, they eagerly wave to the snowman and dance in the aisles. The stage effects and lighting maintain the effect of snow fall throughout – a perfect setting for the enchanting choreography of Robert North. The famous score with music and lyrics by Howard Blake clearly inspires the gestures and movement. North makes ballet accessible to a new audience with his choreography, expertly performed by the Ice Princess and Jack Frost. Due respect must also be given to The Snowman (Martin Fenton) for fantastically leaping and pirouetting in a fluffy snowman suit. The young boy cast as James is a confident performer with excellent miming abilities.
Now in its 21st year at the Peacock Theatre, The Snowman is a nostalgia trip for parents and the perfect treat to kick-start the festive season for all the family.
“The cast’s depictions are all pin sharp, yet McGann stands out”
Alex is an artist enduring the final stages of his life following a brutal, second stroke. Living, barely, in the arid, American South West, he is the subject of practical and philosophical contemplations between his son Sean (Jack Wilkinson), second wife Toinette (Josie Lawrence) and fourth, younger wife Lia (Clara Indrani) as to when and how he should be guided into the beyond. We see Alex (Joe McGann) at different stages: in his cavorting and carefree prime, between strokes in a wheelchair, and finally in a vegetative state to be sedated at the whim of his significant others. His fate is now dependent on the trio’s conflicting views of him as a father or husband, as much as on their ponderings on morality and mortality.
As a novelist for whom writing is ‘a concentrated form of thinking’, Don DeLillo seems impossible to transfer stylistically to the stage. His slow and sublime evocation of mood and abstract themes don’t promise much for a theatre-goer to engage with. Director Jack McNamara admits his reservations were eventually overcome only by having the resources to create theatricality by other means. That he pulls it off is a noteworthy feat. Lily Arnold’s set design shows us the comfortable sofa and wooden floor of Alex’s home, essential for long, angsty interactions, but surrounding it is the sand and scrub that symbolises the immense unknown, creating a sense that Alex and everyone else sit at the edge of eternity. Over this scene looms a huge transparent screen, host to some stunning video and lighting effects (Azusa Ono and Andrzej Goulding) which somehow create the distance and nostalgia of memories by technical means, assisted by cinematic sound design from Alexandra Faye Braithwaite.
Given the sedentary nature of the main character, action is difficult to contrive. The brilliance of the script prompts regular chuckles of appreciation from the audience, but emotional connection is harder to come by. The cast’s depictions are all pin sharp, yet McGann stands out, despite or because of having the hardest task, by breathing authenticity into a mostly cerebral role; an artist creating art out of his bleak context. This may or may not be a parallel with De Lillo himself, but given the control and precision in every aspect of the play, including this production, it seems unlikely to be a coincidence.
A memorable production, this Love-Lies-Bleeding matches poetic imagery with precise staging. However, if you’re left pleasantly haunted by the show, it’s accompanied by a strange desire to find a copy of the text to experience it properly, as a reader.
