Citizens' Theatre, 16/11/2016

Sheridan : The Rivals

Directed by Dominic Hill

This was a three-way co-production between the Citizens', the Bristol Old Vic, and the Liverpool Everyman theatres, with Dominic Hill, who's the Artistic Director at the Citz, as the director.  Curiously, very like his production of Stephen Jeffrey's The Libertine two years ago, the setting is stripped back to the bare walls of the stage, with racks of clothing visible, and the stage hands quite visible as they move items around.  Costume is period to Sheridan and the play, and squared arches (or maybe picture frames) of varying sizes drop in and out of the stage area to suggest rooms, with the occasional painted flat evoking Bath in its Regency hey-day.  Yet the presentation of the piece is quite modern in many respects, there's no attempt to imitate 18th Century attitudes or delivery, and nowhere is this more true than in Lucy Briggs-Owen's interpretation of Lydia Languish.

As the character's name suggests, she's meant to be a little ridiculous, but in Briggs-Owen's hands, she's a spoilt, self-centred teenager, with a nasal whine and an affected lisp, prone to gurning and hissy fits.  I have to say I didn't find this particularly endearing, she seemed far too childish to be anyone's object of affection, and I also found Briggs-Owen difficult to understand much of the time.  That said, she played Lydia in this manner with conviction and unwavering purpose, and it was certainly memorable.  It also provided Jessica Hardwick with a strong foil for her more modest and usually more sensible Julia, though Julia, too, has her unreasonable moments when it comes to trying to handle the neurotic doubts of Faulkland, her betrothed, excellently played by Nicholas Bishop.

Rhys Rusbatch was a forthright Jack, trying to be a bit too clever for his own good, but he was particularly effective as a complement to some of the others in shared scenes.  The scene between Jack, Faulkland and Acres, where Faulkland works himself up into a frenzy as Acres innocently describes meeting a perfectly cheerful Julia - in the absence of Faulkland - while Jack eggs them both on, growing increasingly helpless with laughter, was beautifully handled by Rusbatch, Bishop and Lee Mengo's bluff Welsh squire.  Keith Dunphy's Irish accent was another one I found a little tricky on the ear, particularly at volume, when the character is going off like a firecracker, but otherwise he made Sir Lucius O'Trigger ultimately a rather more sympathetic character than expected.

However, the honours went to  Julie Legrand and Desmond Barrit.  Legrand's Mrs. Malaprop tossed out her legendary lines as naturally as a character imbued with arch pretensions can do.  Again, Rusbatch brought out the best in her characterisation in the scene in which Jack first meets Mrs. Malaprop.  The simpering vanity, the indignation at "Beverley's" insults, the self-righteousness, were all pitch-perfect.  So too was Barrit's Sir Anthony Absolute, abrupt and unpredictable, assertive and assured, more subtle and complex than just a choleric elderly gentleman.

The text has been lightly pruned (whether to reduce the length, or to remove some passages that really have not withstood the test of time), but its wit and freshness remain intact, particularly in such a vivacious, good-humoured staging as this.

[Next : 18th November ]