by Anyone who is waiting for the second series of rivals can satisfy their wishes with this new piece by Laura Wade, who follows her episodes of Jilly Cooper’s 80s Rutshire Bonkbuster with an adaptation of Womerset Maughham’s almost centuries -old comedy of manners. The production of the RSC serves a separate tennis court lust, an obvious philize, a toxic gossip and a fabulous fashion.
In Maugham’s game, the 36-year-old Constance reacts to her affair of her surgeon husband John with her best friend Marie-Louise by gaining economic independence through her new career as an interior design. Wade retains the Harley Street setting of the 1920s, records the list of characters and gives space for Constance’s mother’s concerns. She also integrates a few extremely funny individuals together with Maugham’s and receives additional gags by surfing on his dated expressions such as “You are a brick”. The piece remains the same salon comedy, but is rounded up, stylishly arranged and reach Anna Fleischle and Cat Fuller’s lavish designs with a fresh coat of paint).
One of Wades’ main changes is to explode the uncomplicated chronology of the piece of three files that are separated by the passing of fourteen days or a year. She puts the moment when Marie-Louise’s husband Mortimer breaks down to uncover her affair, and with a long review adds a new scene to show Constance on the act when she returns from her daughter in a Yorkshire boarding school that is brilliant called “Wuthering exercise”. Witness of this discovery and its mutual confidants with the Butler Bentley (in view of an in -depth character) increases empathy for Constance, which was calculated as more written by Maugham.
In the leading role, Game of Thrones’ Rose Leslie-Wieder arrives on stage after nine-year-old absence how a summer breeze in a cool blue sailor chic. Leslie captures what Maugham Constances described “alarm understanding” and succeeds in the difficult balance of composed determination with raw emotions.
Despite the allusions, a chosen double line -up and the hectic cover -up, Tamara Harvey finds targeted and perfectly occupied production more humor in an increased eyebrow or in the lip than everything that has everything Farcical. The single changes in the scene, which are located with the fireplace and the SLO-MO occupation movements, have not yet completely left with the rest of the evening. Jamie Cullum’s original jazz compositions, alternately Bristling and Velvety, complement both the mood and the milieu and bring their own comic grades with them, which have been accentuated by Ryan Day’s cheeky light design.
Meat set with its elegant curves, screens and geometric patterns is adorned with a chaise longue and painted in colors that cause Fortnum & Mason’s wasteful confectionery. The Fleischle and Fuller costumes increase the serving of Constances Mother (Kate Burton) as well as her sister Martha’s wisdom (Amy Morgan, in a role that elements of the cut character Barbara wins).
Wade fully calculates with the double standards and hypocrisy in the game and honestly takes into account the financial and emotional investments of marriage and the way in which marriage is maintained after the first romance. While the changes of the piece in feminism remember wades at home, I am a darling – and these debates from the 1920s feel suitable today – there is also a meta -playfulness that is never exaggerated and resembles The Watsons.
Some selection observations about theater fit a clever self -confidence in the staging. In one scene, Constance recognizes the audience as another group of neighbors who are waiting to assess their reaction as a “wrong woman”. When Martha tells her sister that her next step could be a blueprint for others, it is almost like talking to Ibsen’s Nora.
Related: Somerset Maugham: A Waliger playwright of light dramas and weighty morality
Emma McDonald is ridiculously good as the calculating Marie-Louise, who admits on her knees on her knees, even if you never believe her friendship at all as in Maughham’s play. John (Luke Norris), Mortimer (Daniel Millar) and Constances puppies, which Bernard (Raj Bajaj) devoted, remain purely funny as in the original, but Mark Meadows’ devotion, as Bentley cuts deeper.
It is an all-round well-effective and sophisticated evening that offers a lot of light and at the same time a marriage that is not derived from a seven-year itching, but is diverted by a 15-year change.
• In the Swan Theater, Stratford-Upon-Avon, until August 2nd
