Room is definitely worth a view at Dundee Rep

Room at Dundee Rep

Following her best selling novel and a triple Oscarwinning film – Irish novelist Emma Donoghue has adapted her harrowing story of kidnap and abuse for a stage performance.

Premiered at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, the story, which is pure fiction but with overtones of many actual events – mainly the Josef Fritzl case in Austria – is told through the eyes of five-year-old Jack with narration by his identically-clad older self.

His mother was kidnapped seven years previously by “Old Nick” and kept imprisoned in a shed and, so, Jack has never known anything but the Room.

His fortress is the four walls and a cupboard where he sleeps, hidden away from the sight, if not sounds, of the abuse his mother is forced to suffer.

His imagination is his saviour, as are the adventures that unfold from his view through the skylight.

But, following their escape, the “comfort” of their four walls is replaced by another prison – the fear of the unknown, the fear of normality, whatever that may be.

This is a gripping drama under the directorship of the National Theatre of Scotland’s Cora Bissett, who also wrote the music and lyrics in collaboration with Scottish songwriter Kathryn Joseph.

The musical finale is particularly poignant as Ma and Jack revisit the Room before it is demolished.

It is a triumph for the off-stage crew in this hi-tech production.

Even in the relative expanse of the auditorium, there is a weird feeling of claustrophobia in the cube-shaped Room, which is set on a revolve to reveal Jack in his cupboard.

And lots of screens help to project the wild imagination of the young captive.

The role of Jack is shared in rotation by three young actors, and with Witney White as Ma and Fela Lufadeju as Big Jack, all combine beautifully to create the bond between mother and child and the difficulties that unfold for Jack in this strange outside world following incarceration.

It is a tale that is full of hope in captivity, yet a degree of hopelessness in freedom but, essentially, a production full of imagination and technical ingenuity.

Room is showing at Dundee Rep until this Saturday then relocates to the Abbey Theatre in Dublin.