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Written
by
Jean Anouilh
Translated
and adapted by
Christopher
Fry
Performed
at the Playhouse Theatre
Starring
Emily Bruni
Fiona Button
Joanna David
Elisabeth Dermot Walsh
Peter Eyre
JJ Field
Andrew Havill
Belinda Lang
Leigh Lawson
John Ramm
Angela Thorne
Directed
by
Sean Mathias
Designed
by
Colin Richmond
Choreography
by
Wayne Macgregor
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The Playhouse Theatre
5 Feb - 24 May 2008 |
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Ring
Round the Moon
is light, diverting, amusing
with dextrous dialogue that
can raise a titter - deep,
it is not. It is set in a
country house on the eve of
a party when plots are laid
to scupper the chances of
an imprudent marriage. There
are identical brothers, love-crossed
women, disguises, outlandish
plans, a faithful butler and
an imperious and redoubtable
aunt. So far so PG Wodehouse.
JJ Field making his West End
debut is a pleasing enough
presence in a sub-Jude Law
kind of way, there are some
nicely choreographed dances,
some acidly cynical manoeuvrings
and an innocent thrown into
the mix, played prettily by
Fiona Button. But there is
one colossal mistake that
collapses the whole lemon
soufflÈ. One crass oversight
of such import that it should
have had alarm bells ringing
the length of Shaftesbury
Avenue - or at least halfway
up Northumberland Avenue,
where the play is being staged.
I will explain:
Jean Anouilh set his play
in the belle époque
of turn of the century France.
He wrote it in 1946 and Christopher
Fry translated it in 1950,
a diversion from the privations
of post war austerity and
perhaps a light tonic for
the nervous collapse that
Fry suffered whilst serving
during the war. Enter the
director of this revival,
Sean Mathias who moves the
setting of the play to Post
War France with the reasoning
that Christian Dior launched
his New Look in 1947 so it
must be a time for glamorous
parties. The costumes look
great, the set is fine and
Matthias may have pulled it
all off were it not for the
legacy of two Jewish characters
in Arnoiulh's original script.
Arnoiulh bequeaths us a money
obsessed Jewish millionaire
with a dangerously marriageable
daughter staying at a French
country house; it is the proposed
marriage to the Jewish heiress
that drives the action of
the comedy. But how many Jewish
millionaires would there be
left loitering around French
chateaux in 1947? How many
would be persuaded to see
the error of their money grubbing
ways, then moved to tearfully
tear up wads of notes and
declare they missed being
the "poor little tailor
from Krakow"? How many
tailors were their left in
Krakow in 1947? There are
many Jewish stereotypes in
literature, some offensive
some less so, that are confidently
played to modern audiences.
The Merchant of Venice has
been successfully staged in
Israel. But these works with
their legacies of different
attitudes have to be handled
with care. To set lines like
"I always carry plenty
of notes", "money
is the answer to everything",
"strike a bargain with
me before it is too late"
at a time when the greater
part of European Jewry had
been wiped out or fled the
continent, is grotesquely
impolite. To play it for laughs
with an 'Oy-vey' accent is
puzzlingly misguided. Apart
from that, the cast carried
the script off well and the
dancing was slick, but for
me the laughs rang rather
hollow after the first act.
Charlie Taylor |
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