Ruari Murchison – Live Art Alive

Jessica Brydges, Julia Brown, Kacey Ainsworth, Rachael McAllister and Meg Chaplin as The March family in Little Women at HOME
Image credit: Chris Payne

Written by Louisa May Alcott

Adapted by Anne-Marie Casey

Directed by Brigid Larmour

HOME in association with Pitlochry Festival Theatre

HOME

First published in 1868 this well loved American semi-autobiographical classic tells the story of four sisters who are navigating their teens as they each grapple with what it means to become Little Women. Set during the American Civil War the story unfolds as their mother Marmee holds the home together while their father is off to war and this genteel family adjust to becoming impoverished.

Anne-Marie Casey keeps faithful to the original text while managing to include the main events of the original and its follow-up Little Wives. The focus is firmly on Alcott’s main themes of domesticity, work and true love as the sisters navigate supporting each other financially within the constraints of New England society while deciding if it’s ever possible to marry both for love and financial security.

This is a great piece in that it puts women at its forefront with a range of interesting roles. In this adaptation it is stripped back to just eight actors with six of them women. The ever wonderful Susan Twist does an inspired turn as Aunt March. Imperious and acidic, she is a force to be reckoned with as this elegant patrician attempts to maintain standards for one of New England’s finest families. Kacey Ainsworth is a fine actress who looks perfectly cast as Marmee but at times feels under used and constrained by either the script or Brigid Larmour‘s considered direction. She exudes love and patience as she tries to be a good mother and a dutiful wife and neighbour while worrying about the financial future of her brood.

Susan Twist and Rachael McAllister as Aunt March and Jo in Little Women at HOME.
Image credit: Chris Payne

The sisters are led by Jo who sees herself as rough and wild. She is the aspiring writer who wants home and hearth to remain unchanged forever and her character is based on Alcott herself. Rachael McAllister plays her with passionate enthusiasm giving free rein to Jo’s impetuousity and bad temper as well as her fierce love of family. However there are times when her gauche clumsiness and mulish ways veer too much towards the huffiness of a difficult child and get in the way of taking her seriously as the writer and woman she is attempting to become. Jessica Brydges as Meg seems less conceited than in the original text so her journey to contented marriage with the impoverished but honourable John seems less dramatically interesting. Meg Chaplin is utterly believable as the delicate and docile Beth and her piano playing and singing add a lovely additional element to this production. The youngest and traditionally least likeable sister is Amy who has the most growing up to do. Actress Julia Brown really shines as she delivers a performance that allows her character to grow from a petulant and vindictive child to a worldly and emotionally wise young woman who is ultimately a much better wife for Laurie than Jo could have ever been.

Daniel Francis Swaby gives Laurie plenty of charm and a laconic wit. He has a winsome energy and at times an emotional intelligence that sometimes seems at odds with his attachment for Jo but make for a vibrant addition to the pacing of this production when he is on stage. Tom Richardson plays John Brooks and Professor Bhaer giving both men real decency, compassion and humour. He is especially good as he mentors Jo in New York as the exiled German Professor who passionately believes in the power and importance of The Arts.

Daniel Francis Swaby as Laurie in Little Women at HOME. Image credit: Chris Payne

The set design by Ruari Murchison is visually striking as the tall fine birches of New England stand strong whether in snowy woodland, winter ice skating or in the March home or streets of New York. The staging is simple but ambitious and effective. However the use of several main props so close to the front and sides of the stage may make for tricky sight lines for some audience members. The stage is beautifully lit and the subtle use of sound such as the ticking clock, crackling of ice on a lake or the peal of bells as war ends is a genius touch by Niroshini Thambar.

The script and the thoughtful direction by Brigid Larmour makes for an enjoyable production peppered with moments of warm humour, a depth of love and genuine pathos and despair that reflect real family life both now and in the time Alcott was writing about her Little Women. There are times when the slow pace can be frustrating but as a well rendered piece of nostalgia for the stage this production has much to recommend it.

HOME 8th – 23rd December 2023

HOME

Written by Jean Genet

Translation by Martin Crimp

Directed by Lily Sykes

My jet of spit is my spray of diamonds says Solange and this defines this production of The Maids. Director Lily Sykes has taken her directorial experience in Germany and employed it to excellent use with this darkly erotic and uncomfortably sinister game of charades between two sisters and their Mistress. The slow trickle of sand from the ceiling signalling hope ebbing away is echoed in the drip, drip, drip of poisonous words and actions that pervades the performance. Toxicity is everywhere, not just lurking in the contents of a dainty china cup. The Maids is decadent and delicious in its insoucuant disregard for conventional morality.

The main stage at HOME has been transformed by designer Ruari Murchison to create a round central stage that perfectly captures the psychological boxing ring that is this play. Like a Coliseum of gladiators the cast fling barbed words and even the flowers strewn around the stage are pointed weapons that gaily puncture the floor like poison darts. Seated in the round the audience become props for the cast as they interact with us like blank eyed smiling sociopaths.

Screens project quotes from Genet and images of iconic faces such as Hitler and Mary Berry with provocative statements such as good/bad, bon/mal invite reflection on how we perceive our society. These screens also act like surveillance cameras and project close ups of the performers as they obsessively examine their own ever changing and increasingly unsettling images. Like our obsession with celebrity and our own appearance, the characters seem trapped by their own reflections.

In keeping with the duality in Genet’s work, the maids and their Mistress are all played by men. All three are perfectly cast as foils for each other’s capricious natures and are mecurial in their capacity to move in and out of Dom/Sub roles. They share make up and fashion while trading blows and insults like prize bitches in a nightclub toilet or naughty children in their mother’s bedroom. Jake Fairbrother as Claire brings vulnerability and wistfulness to his character while maintaining a sense of powerful sexuality when needed. His beautifully modulated delivery gives a real emotional depth to his performance. Luke Mullins is enthralling as the brittle, desperate and yet imperious Solange. Danny Lee Wynter relishes his role as Mistress, giving her a tender affection for her maids coupled with a chilling disregard for their plight.

Jean Genet experienced life as an outsider and his work relishes and glorifies the adsurdity of life that makes one man an outcast and another revered or one woman a maid while the other is the Mistress. This production of The Maids celebrates his sense of the absurd and pokes fun at our own ways of coping in an increasingly nightmarish world.

HOME 16th Nov – 1st Dec

Images by Jonathan Keenan