| Dark tragedy with almost surreal comedy. |
At Mappa Mundi |
| Mappa Mundi- Moll Flanders , Theatr Mwldan Cardigan , March 3, 2007 |
Mappa Mundi has built up a reputation as irreverent purveyors of accessible classics. Their Moliere incorporated pop lyrics, their Henry VIII had little of Shakespeare's own words, As You Like It included some Kylie and Taming of the Shrew was an all-male take on a feminist bete-noir.But you can forget that now. Anyone who goes to Moll Flanders hoping for a jolly, bawdy, rumbustious romp will be... Well, not disappointed, but surprised, I think. Forget heaving bosoms, ripped corsets and the other dubious attributes of modern adaptations of eighteenth-century costume dramas: this is a dark tragedy with the odd illumination of almost surreal comedy. Yes, Mappa Mundi has come of age at last. This is the story of a resilient woman in a man's world, one who comes bouncing back after each relentless setback (and as setbacks go you can't get much worse than finding you've accidentally married your brother, for example, just one of Moll's disastrous liaisons), told in flashback from her incarceration in Newgate goal as she awaits the inevitable gallows. Mappa Mundi’s last shot at serious drama, Richard III, was not very successful but here, as well as offering us a harder, more challenging narrative than last year’s Canterbury Tales, Mappa Mundi creates a piece of theatre that has lots of production quality - there's the customary attention to costume but with a good set, a pastiche score balanced by some good live singing… and, crucially, a stunning lead performance from Mali Tudno Jones. Lynne Seymour's direction and Keiron Self's script is also reassuringly intelligent as it lulls us first into thinking this is the same Mappa Mundi, with lots of manic humping and broad comedy, before it lures us into the tragedy of Moll's life. Yes, there's still the naughty-schoolboy irreverence and innuendo but in fact some of the risqué word-play later almost gets thrown away as Moll's rollercoaster of a life takes on a darker edge. The team has eschewed an overtly political theme, however, attributing Moll's tragic life to misfortune as much as patriarchy. But perhaps Mappa Mundi is still wary of getting too serious for Moll Flanders does, despite its strengths, tend to go for instant effect rather than develop characters or raise issues. The original 1720s material, of course, Defoe's fashionably picaresque novel, is hardly the complex fiction into which the novel was to develop, and this adaptation doesn't try and change the rambling episodic structure. But what this means is we have a series of sketches rather than a narrative with no real continuity or fleshed-out characters. And we do really need to empathise with the unfortunate Moll if her final fate is to have the impact that Ms Jones's performance deserves. For me the disconnected snapshots that constitute her life merely reinforce the idea that it was Fate rather than men that dictated her story and we are denied a deeper portrait of a remarkable fictional icon. Moreover, while this Moll is in some ways the classic unreliable narrator (we only see her story from her point of view, of course), Keiron Self doesn’t create the distancing we need to be able to see another parallel narrative to balance against her own colourful versions of events. Mappa Mundi has only come out to play once a year so far. Let's hope this very successful and different incarnation of one of Wales's most popular theatre companies, now emboldened to move on from the knockabout stereotype by the support of Theatr Mwldan, take future productions more seriously. |
Reviewed by: David Adams |
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