George Eliot’s novel is a classic, and Shared
Experience captures not only its narrative but its emotional tenor. In
directing Helen Edmundson’s dramatic adaptation, Nancy Meckler and Polly
Teale imaginatively enlist three actresses to portray the complex
psychology of heroine Maggie Tulliver at three stages of her life.
There
is the impetuous child (Pauline Turner), still with the grown-up Maggie,
representing feelings she must hide. Maggie as a young woman (Jessica
Lloyd) must control her love for Philip, son of the family’s enemy,
because her domineering brother forbids contact with him. The third
Maggie (Caroline Faber), a mature woman, despite the encouragement of
willful child Maggie, struggles to suppress her love for Stephen Guest,
beloved by her cousin. As the three Maggies interact, as the child lures
her older self to express her emotions, the one about to speak claps her
hand over the mouth of the former speaker, the physical act of repression
also a signal to the audience.
In the opening scene, child Maggie reads about a witch
on trial by ducking, while behind her the scene in her head is reenacted,
and with imaginative lighting, the watery flood the witch encounters
presages Maggie’s destiny, to be punished by a rigid and prejudiced
society. With intelligence and imagination, using only eight actors and
basic scenery, the directors evoke the repressive society that enveloped
Eliot as well as the character she created. (Unlike Maggie, she defied
convention and eloped with the man she loved.) The metaphor of the
drowning witch reflects Maggie’s dilemma: if she floats, she is condemned;
she must drown to be proven innocent. Until May 5 at the New Ambassadors
(West Street, WC2H 9ND, phone 020-7369-1761)
There
is the impetuous child (Pauline Turner), still with the grown-up Maggie,
representing feelings she must hide. Maggie as a young woman (Jessica
Lloyd) must control her love for Philip, son of the family’s enemy,
because her domineering brother forbids contact with him. The third
Maggie (Caroline Faber), a mature woman, despite the encouragement of
willful child Maggie, struggles to suppress her love for Stephen Guest,
beloved by her cousin. As the three Maggies interact, as the child lures
her older self to express her emotions, the one about to speak claps her
hand over the mouth of the former speaker, the physical act of repression
also a signal to the audience.
and with imaginative lighting, the watery flood the witch encounters
presages Maggie’s destiny, to be punished by a rigid and prejudiced
society. With intelligence and imagination, using only eight actors and
basic scenery, the directors evoke the repressive society that enveloped
Eliot as well as the character she created. (Unlike Maggie, she defied
convention and eloped with the man she loved.) The metaphor of the
drowning witch reflects Maggie’s dilemma: if she floats, she is condemned;
she must drown to be proven innocent. Until May 5 at the New Ambassadors
(West Street, WC2H 9ND, phone 020-7369-1761)