Shadowlands tells the come-Sunday love affair between temperate Englishman C.S. Lewis (Stephen Boxer) and magnetic American Joy Gresham (Amanda Ryan). With an age difference of 18 years and Lewis’s strong negative feelings towards remarriage, their coupling surprised the 1950s Oxford scene almost as much as it surprised the two of them.
Built upon incident and accident for much of its duration, their courtship is by no means conventional. It begins as correspondence about Lewis’s series of novels based in Narnia, and transforms over time. Joy travels between England and the US. Even after marrying to ensure she gains British citizenship, it is some time before either admits their feelings.
Boxer and Ryan do a fine job of developing the romance over the course of the production, alternately in increments and then brief surges. Thus, by the time Lewis and Gresham come to realise that they are in love, the audience so wills them to be happy together — brightly, unambiguously in love — that the misfortune that follows hits all the harder.
The story has found continued success in the theatre, but moreover gained the cultural hat-trick: the 1985 TV drama, the critically lauded 1993 film adaptation and of course the stage play. Like other classics, modern or otherwise, it is a story which considers love, death, faith and the nature of living.
All of the cast do solid work here. Though the age-blind, gender-blind casting of Douglas (Shannon Rewcroft) perhaps works better as the play progresses, there are no weak links here. Warnie (a superb Denis Lill, making the most of a smaller role) and Professor Christopher Riley (a drily caustic Simon Shackleton) provide welcome moments of levity early in the play and one feels one wants to know so much more about each of them.
Particular credit must go to Ryan, for her work as Joy is effective at shaking up the status quo not only in the narrative, but in the play itself. The biggest laughs of the night go to her, yet she manages to deliver the most effective performance, too. Scenes after her introduction in which she is absent never fare quite so well.
Introducing an iron-willed, waggish divorcée with a New Yawk rasp into a narrative in which every other scene makes the highfalutin’ seem ordinary and every other character is an Oxford University academic, is a brilliant idea. That such brilliance is based in biography only makes it better.
Not necessarily a play for everyone, Shadowlands is a good piece of theatre, which soars when its best character is on-stage and occasionally drags when she is not. Younger audiences or those that prefer a little more action may not find so much to love here, but the story at its heart is not only of the heart, but delivered in an commendably heartfelt manner. ★★★★☆ Will Amott 1st June 2016
