Peter Viney's Blog

Play adapted from her novel by Kate Mosse

Directed by Róisín McBrinn
Designed by Paul Willis
Music by Sinéad Diskin

Chichester Festival Theatre
Thursday 14th April 2022, 14.30

CAST
Robyn Ellan Ashwood- Young Cassie
Geoff Ayner- Lewis / Clerk
Pearl Chanda- Cassie Pine
William Chubb – Charles Crowther
Tim Frances – Frederick Brook / LeviNutbeem
Haddymai John – Young Connie
Forbes Masson- Crowley Clifford
Taheen Modak – Harry Woolston
Akai Osei – Deavey Reedman
Alastair Parker-Sergeant Pennicot / Gregory Joseph
Daisy Prosper – Connie Gifford
Raad Rawi – Dr Jack Woolston
Howard Saddler- Gerald White
Posy Sterling- Mary Christie
Lauren van Wyck – Young Connie
Connie Walker – Jennie Christie

Townspeople: Mwenya Chisanga, Susie Gibbs, Robert Hall, Kevin Hawkes, Colette Holmes, Andy Trust, Chris Yedham

The taxidermist’s daughter? The title took me back to the start of secondary school and rude couplets passed around in the school playground. They all started ‘She was only the (wicket keeper / pilot / taxidermist’s) daughter, but …’ Fortunately the filthy remainder escapes my memory, though I believe ‘stuffing’ or ‘stuffed’ was linked to the one of the title. I suspect the writer had no idea.

Kate Mosse is the author of several historical novels, and lives near Chichester. She wrote The Languedoc Trilogy (Labyrinth, Sepulchre and Citadel), The Winter Ghosts and her new historical series, The Burning Chambers and The City of Tears. This one is advertised as a thrilling Gothic mystery set in and around Chichester. They add that ‘some people may find the themes distressing’ which is always intriguing. The programme describes her as a multi-million selling novelist, and the play is adapted from her 2012 novel. She’s popular- we were speaking to the people next to us in the interval and said we were finding it hard to follow the plot. They agreed that it was hard to follow, and told us they’d read the book too. My only experience was the Labyrinth audio book. We had read that it had similarities to The Dan Vinci Code and Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian, both of which we’d enjoyed in the car. We gave up on Labyrinth after about two hours. We couldn’t follow the plot, or rather were not grabbed enough to try to.

The programme has quotes from Revenge tragedies and related texts. They include The Spanish Tragedy by Kyd, and Hamlet, though Shakespeare’s most obvious example is Titus Andronicus. They were a Jacobean speciality on stage:

When the bad bleed, the tragedy is good.
Thomas Middleton, The Revenger’s Tragedy, 1606

The revenge saga starts with Greek tragedy. It went into novels, then 19th century melodrama. Film proved its favourite seat, with Charles Bronson’s Death Wish series (1974 on) forming the template. His wife was murdered. He seeks revenge. Looking back, my first literary effort was one. I co-wrote a comic strip with an illustrator friend for a university underground magazine, The Red Asp. It was 1968, and the central figure a half French, half Vietnamese girl whose family had been murdered and she had been raped by the platoon of soldiers who killed them, and she was going to seek them out in later life and kill them all, one episode at a time. The magazine died after episode one. The illustration was brilliant.

It’s an unusual genre for the modern stage.It’s timely too as we shudder at news reports from Ukraine. The outline. No plot spoilers, but it may help to follow it.

Connie Gifford (Daisy Prosper) is a taxidermist’s daughter. The taxidermist, Crowley Gifford (Forbes Masson) is an alcoholic. Ten years ago, he had a taxidermy museum in the garden, but it’s all shut up. Connie does the taxidermy nowadays, which is considered an unsuitable task for a woman. She had an accident in the past and remembers nothing before ten years ago. She is haunted by images of two children playing, one is her. The other a lost companion who she can barely recall. What happened?

The wealthy men of the area are the doctor, Dr Jack Woolston, Mr Brook, a dealer in chinaware, Mr White, a property agent and Mr Crowther, a very wealthy powerful bloke. Dr Woolston’s son, Harry, is employed by Mr Brook, but finds it hard to get up to go to work.

Two women have escaped from the local asylum, Vera Barker, who is a vagrant, and Cassie Pine, who is a central character throughout, linking, narrating, being herself. There were dark deeds in the past, which is how Connie lost her memory. Cassie, her childhood friend and a maid in her house, is the one she can’t remember.

There are four members of the evil Corvid Club. I thought for a while it was the Corbyn club, and thought, ‘that’s a bit political,’ but no, it’s Corvid, as in the bird family of crows. The real names are not subtle. JACK Woolston – jackdaw. Mr bROOK – rook, Mr White – magpie, then is the crow Mr CROWther, or is it CROWley Gifford? I’ll add that we had tickets for this play in 2020. It was postponed because of Covid, so Corvid is NOT a clever Covid reference.

The dark deed of ten years ago will come into memory. Revenge will be enacted. No more plot.

As a play, it has original ideas, but unfortunately several of them don’t work. Much is made of video projection, and the rain effect and sea flood lighting effect is brilliantly executed, and far better than turning on the rain machine and soaking the poor actors. The video projection is a major plus.

There is a (very) loud musical score, but the cast and / or director fail badly on Acting 101 / Directing 101. The rule? Never try to deliver important lines though loud music, laughter or applause. At the start and later, crucial lines are drowned by music. Yes, the actors all had head microphones. It didn’t help. Not that there was any laughter, nor applause until the end. There were about three incidences of titters here and there, but they were all related to mentions of Chichester, where we were. e.g. Estate agents are never short of money in Chichester. The play has no leavening nor contrast of humour.

Chichester likes to line its semi-circular thrust stage with foliage at the edges. This time it was rushes to indicate the West Sussex marshes. Unfortunately, we were in Row B, and one stand of rushes was right in front of us, and Karen, shorter than me said she got REALLY irritated by trying to watch the action through the rushes. As she said, it’s not a story about Moses.

The set? They make great use of Chichester’s central stage lift to put desks and tables into place. At various times there were taxidermy cases on show. They were rectangular and blurry. I worked in a museum with taxidermy in display cases, and they were usually beautiful clear glass with rounded globes at the top. If you’re going to all the trouble of having taxidermy, I would have lit the cases from within. I think they did light Harry’s painting, and a skeleton. Oddly, the photos on line show well-lit cases. Did they forget to switch them on when we saw it? Or was it our angle?

The skeleton has nothing to do with the story. A stuffed bear would have been much better. However, they’ve probably had to be returned to the Rockies or wherever and given a full burial now. But I wouldn’t have had rectangular glass boxes either. The cottage with sacking sides at the back of the stage doesn’t work.

There were other things that didn’t work structurally. They start off with a song, Cock Robin, from Cassie, then we see men trudging to the church in the rain and singing. Ah, there’ll be lots of music, we thought. No, that was about it apart from a few short solo couplets. You don’t launch with a solo song, then a choral song and just abandon it there.

I didn’t like the static blocking, especially when Connie is with her maid, Mary. Connie was left like a Riverdance Irish dancer arms dangling unused at her sides. Connie was otherwise excellent.

My main ire was reserved for the dialogue. Reviews describe the original book as ‘beautifully written.’ I bought the play text at the theatre. It seems common now for writers to put (beat) into lines to indicate pauses. I prefer an ellipsis, three dots … She uses ellipsis for unfinished sentences, which I also do. Actors generally prefer to use their professional skills and decide on pauses themselves. I’ve had conversations about (beat). Kate Mosse may be a multi-million selling novelist, but the ear for dialogue was lacking to us. To be charitable, people do talk in tired clichés and trundle out well-worn set expressions, and perhaps she was trying to create the stilted dialogue of 1912 children’s annuals.

There’s a shadow hanging over us
My blood ran cold.
It’s all in your mind.
I’ll be two ticks.
I can say, without fear of contradiction …
… see if he can throw any light on the matter.
He was clever, I’ll give him that
I’ll give it my best shot.

Then the dialogue between Lewis the Butler and Harry is pastiche Oscar Wilde (minus the humour) I’ll add that if you’re doubling roles, you choose someone less distinctive looking. Cassie has some short “poetic” monologues.

Then the victim of ten years ago has to seduce one of her assailants who is into masochism. A gentle blow on the back of a thick coat for the “naughty boy” who wants beating doesn’t do it. In spite of two fight directors, not one piece of violent action looked convincing.

The script makes it clear that the baddies are seen in a flashback to the mimed offence of ten years ago, kicking out at an imagined victim. Surely it was directly sexual rather than beating ? I assumed it involved rape. That could be more explicit, and more horribly so to have full effect.

Most Chichester productions rightly go on to the West End. Will this? I think it would need a thorough overhaul first. Some script editing is needed. More thought to when music drowns lines. As it stands now, I don’t see it as strong enough. I do believe there is room for some polishing though.

Overall? Karen thought the acting deserved a three. There are interesting things going on in staging. The plot clarity is not brought out sufficiently for me and it merits no more than two stars.

**

LINKS ON THIS BLOG:

PEARL CHANDA
Two Gentlemen of Verona, RSC 2014
The Seagull, Headlong / Nuffield 2013

FORBES MASSON
Bartholomew Fair, Ben Jonson, Wanamaker Playhouse 2019
The Merry Wives of Windsor, Globe 2019
Boudica, Globe 2017
Travesties, Menier, 2016
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bath 2016
The Ruling Class, Trafalgar Studio, 2015
Richard III, Trafalgar Studio, 2014
Macbeth, Trafalgar Studio, 2013

WILLIAM CHUBB
Racing Demon, Bath 2017
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Old Vic, 2017 (Polonius)
Richard II, Globe 2015 (Duke of York)
Othello – NT 2013
Othello – Shakespeare’s Globe 2018

TIM FRANCES
Sweet Bird of Youth, Chichester 2017
The Magna Carta Plays, Salisbury 2015

CONNIE WALKER
The Importance of Being Earnest, Watermill 2019