Best of books, the worst of shows
Theatre A Tale of Two Cities Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park
This is A Tale of Two Egos.
Matthew Dunster, playwright, and Timothy Sheader, director. “Let’s do Dickens,” they go. “Let’s do a Dickens for the 21st century. A Tale of Two Cities – that’s relevant? French Revolution, rich trampling on the poor, the poor rising up, haves versus have-nots, the cruelly dispossessed seeking sanctuary, best of times, worst of times, let’s make it a Play for Today.”
OK, so I’m putting simplistic words in their mouths. But given the lorry-load of lumpen chat they’ve tipped into Dickens’s Channel-hopping 1859 classic – jettisoning most traces of his prose, and its attendant lyrical beauty, as they collide 18thcentury action with modern trappings – I don’t feel that guilty. “Everyone wants to get to f---ing Britain, mate,” yells a UK border guard at our heroine Lucie and her daughter. Here’s a mightily unsubtle indictment of our immigration system that entails verbal abuse within earshot of a child-actor.
The crude swearing has reportedly prompted a lot of walkouts during previews, much umbrage taken too at a simulated sex scene. This has since been excised, with the expletives reduced, too, but a family show it still ain’t. “A tale of two titties” sniggered a Sun headline but I don’t think this is a laughing matter.
The Open Air Theatre doesn’t have to run away with the fairies – it’s not compelled to do sweet-and-light Shakespeare – but Sheader and co must, surely, be mindful of the fact that many people come to (and support) this bucolic venue because they crave respite from the urban grind; want a lovely night out and also hope to introduce youngsters to theatre-going at its most pleasurable.
Any such innocuous expectations are shown the guillotine here, though – instead we’re confronted with épater-les-bourgeois ugliness. The set, with video screens offering a riot of flickering footage and introductory scene-titles, is dominated by three giant shipping-containers that sit on a revolving stage, the sides sliding back or mechanically lowering to disclose sundry sparse interiors.
On the opening night, it all juddered to a halt in the first half, not long after a lighting strip crashed down near two of the actors (eek!). At least that gave the audience more time to check the programme synopsis: the combination of stilted dialogue, some of it barked into microphones, mixed-period costuming – bodices and tracksuit bottoms – and a PC stroke of casting whereby the two heroes, Darnay and Carton, who are crucially supposed to be easily mistakable, are played by racially distinct actors, would conspire to puzzle even a Dickens buff.
You can’t claim that the cast don’t try their damnedest, or fail to find a sense of poignant uplift in the closing stages. If this were a community centre or refugee camp you might more admire its heartfelt aspirations than bewail its artless let-downs. On this stage, though, it looks like an act of vandalism; the best of books, the worst of shows.