Great Expectations
(Role: Pip as a man)
'Great Expectations' at the
Belgrade
It is always difficult to put a familiar novel
from the mind, as one should, when watching its dramatic adaptation. In the
theatre it must stand or fall on its theatrical merits.
Alec Guiness has made a racy synopsis of
Great Expectations, which opened for a fortnight at the Belgrade
Theatre, Coventry, last night. He introduces familiar characters in a narrative
which must be selective and incomplete. I doubt if it could have been done
better. But after all, Dickens, whatever else, was a first-rate story-teller -
a tremendous theatrical asset.
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It is not, perhaps, quite enough. A story must be
told in terms of theatre, with its characters adequately motivated. If we are
to be treated to great leaps of time and space in the action, the leaps must
have their own cohesion. We must not be submitted to passages of monologue in
which the hero explains what has happened between, introducing or dismissing
characters whose significance is more easily absorbed from the leisurely pages
of a novel than in a brief amplified sentence in a theatre. We have too little
time to assess their individuality, to be convinced of their dramatic reality,
before we are asked to accept their part in plot or situation.
Fast-moving
These are the penalties of the form. Sir Alec knew
them: most Dickensians, or even theatre-goers, will probably care little.
Certainly the Belgrade Company rises triumphantly to the challenge. Derek
Newton, immensely aided by six excellent evocative mobile sets by Brian Currah,
has contrived a fast-moving and imaginative production which minimises the
episodic nature of the play.
Pip as a boy on the marshes or in that ghastly
cobwebbed household of Miss Havisham, Pip as a young gentleman in London
lodgings living on his expectations, engages our sympathy. He is played
sympathetically by Keith Crane and Alan Howard, whose admirable voice proves no
mean asset.
Patrick O'Connell's convict Magwitch, Malcolm
Rogers's blacksmith Joe Gargery, Patricia Hope's ice-hearted Estella, establish
themselves better than time should allow, and last night's audience deservedly
applauded the spritely Herbert Pocket of Charles Kay and the wild, despairing
Miss Havisham of Barbara Atkinson. But whether Great Expectations really stands
on its dramatic merits alone is another matter. Never mind: last night's
audience thoroughly enjoyed it. So, strangely enough, did I.
Birmingham Post, 15.12.59.
Staff Reporter (K.G.)
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