THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE
Donmar Warehouse, until July 28. Tickets: 020 3282 3808 LIA WILLIAMS steps onstage looking magnificently glamorous as rogue schoolteacher Miss Jean Brodie, a woman caught between mature sexuality and societal convention.
Her mission, as depicted in Muriel Spark’s novel and subsequent film and theatre versions, is to instil her wilder feelings into her girls in a bid to stop them from succumbing to the paralysis of respectability and the hidebound expectations of women in between-the-wars Scotland.
David Harrower’s new adaptation is the best yet. The framework is reconstructed in flashback as Spark’s brightest former pupil Sandy Stranger (the terrific Rona Morison), a bestselling author on the verge of entering a convent, is interviewed by a journalist eager to discover the identity of “J” to whom her book is dedicated.
Polly Findlay directs with an assured hand while school and convent are interleaved on Lizzie Clachan’s ascetic set. So are some of the characters, including Sylvestra Le Touzel as both headmistress Miss Mackay and Mother Superior. And with her seductive purr and panther-like movement, Williams exorcises the spectres of earlier Brodies Vanessa Redgrave and Maggie Smith that hover over many productions.
As an apologist for Mussolini, Brodie is no saint but she may be more sinned against than sinning as she struggles with the attentions of two different men (Angus Wright and Edward MacLiam) while attempting to elevate her young girls to the “crème de la crème” of womanhood. Williams superbly conveys Brodie’s conflicting elements of progressive enlightenment and reckless irresponsibility. Caged in the sanctuary of her school, she projects her unfulfilled desires on to her pupils, creating internecine jealousies in the process. Chief victim is
spaniel-like Joyce Emily (Nicola Coughlan) who follows her brother into the Spanish Civil War with fatal results. Brodie’s decline is less dramatic though equally tragic.
A funny, touching, humane production.