When interviewed last year by the BBC, Kneehigh Theatre joint Artistic Director Emma Rice explained, “I’m a great believer that stories come to you. My job is to catch them when they arrive. Sometimes you wake up in the night and remember a novel you read years ago, and then the time is right to do it.” Talking about this latest production of Rebecca, she says, “The Cornish connection is at the heart of my adaptation. I know, love and fear the grey Cornish sea and know that for every glorious summer’s day on the beach, there is an equally terrifying storm. Cornwall is the window to Rebecca and I wanted to feel the ancient call of the sea as strongly as I felt the call of Rebecca. Perhaps for me they are one and the same – beautiful, untamable and free. This production is Cornish to its bones.”
As the lights dimmed on the impish and glamorous eyes of the sumptuous 1940’s illustration Girl with an Orchid by Robert G Harris that adorned the gauze curtain front of stage, a hugely ambitious set was revealed that presented the fading grandeur of Manderley – stucco plastered walls, aged iron balconies – around a central area that doubled as Cornish coast and the reception rooms of the great house. In an extraordinary opening scene that I suspect only Kneehigh could have dreamt up, we were drawn into the soul of the story before the new Mrs de Winter entered with her famous line: “Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again…”
Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca must have represented the juiciest of low-hanging fruit to Kneehigh. A wonderful page-turning exploration of jealousy, betrayal and secrets untold, Emma Rice has seized this opportunity to explore and in some cases extend the powerful female roles in this very Cornish tale. Whether good, bad or both, the characters of the eponymous Rebecca, the embittered Mrs Danvers, and the embroiled Mrs de Winter form the points of an emotional triangle that the male roles simply spin around.
In a wonderful performance Imogen Sage as Mrs de Winter had all it took to convince as first the tentative new bride, then later the scheming ambitious new lady of Manderley, her libido liberated by the reveal of her husband’s feelings for his dead former wife. Again, Emma Rice: “I have taken a terrified innocent and given her a mind, an ambition and a journey. She has the potential for being just as bad as the next person, and I have given her a chance to show it.” By comparison, while Tristan Sturrock as Maxim de Winter smoldered well in the pent-up role, he was always going to have to present a more two-dimensional profile, a man vexed and out-witted by faster, opportunistic women. Emily Raymond delivered the required menace of Mrs Danvers, but I thought she could have been made to look a little older!
Kneehigh brought trademark sideshow moments to the production. Throughout, moods were heightened by some lovely playing on violin, xylophone, mandolin, accordion and double bass, and there were full-throated Cornish sea shanties that gave roots to the drama – After the Soul is Gone, and Hang Boys, Hang interrupting the gloominess of the plot. There was puppetry too, notably Jasper the dog, and a hilarious ‘scratch’- style Charleston danced by the full cast. There might have been a slight concern that this merriment might have been attached solely for the effect of giving us a ‘good night out’, and that the claustrophobic power of Du Maurier’s story might have been compromised as a result, but there was no need to worry. With Kneehigh you are always in good hands, vaudeville mixed with classic noir, why not? ★★★★☆ Simon Bishop 03/03/15
Photo by Steve Tanner
