| An intriguing and fine production |
At National Theatre Wales |
| National Theatre Wales The Devil Inside Him , New Theatre Cardiff , May 13, 2010 |
The third production in this exciting inaugural year of the National Theatre Wales brings us a very good night out in the capital city with their intriguing and fine production of a ‘new’ play by the iconic twentieth century writer John Osborne. It also establishes the Welsh roots of this very English playwright. His play is set “in the living room of the Prosser’s cottage in a village forty miles from Swansea” just after the end of the second world-war. Osborne’s father was in fact born in Newport late in the nineteenth century. Though Osborne tells us that the “Fulham Palace Road was the first identifiable landscape in my life”. He was born there in 1929. One of his many wives referred to him as “a Welsh Fulham upstart”. Nevertheless in this play he demonstrates that by the time he was just eighteen years old he had a shrewd understanding of the Welsh psyche, here brought vividly to life by the skilful, deft touch of one of Wales’ leading directors, Elen Bowman; as well as a good, and developing understanding of the craft of play construction that would become more refined in his world-celebrated canon of over twenty plays. Steven Elliot’s short but very effective performance of the scurrying commercial traveller sets perfectly the slightly seedy atmosphere in which the tense drama takes place. It’s Huw Prosser’s sad and moving story. He’s a boy out of place with his surroundings. He works as a butcher’s assistant but he has a passion for poetry and the magic of words, deeply misunderstood by those who should be cherishing him. “Oh he has the devil inside him” is a phrase that still rings in my ears from early days in the valley’s town of my birth, used for any, usually, young man out of step with the general run of the society around him. Events late in the play indicate possible autism of which very little was known or understood at that time. An extremely challenging role for any actor. Award winning, Cardiff born young actor Iwan Rheon responds with strength and deep sensitivity and expresses well the turmoil that is going on inside the head and heart of this troubled boy. Totally out of place in this household of seeming bigoted religiosity, dominated by his tyrant father who is only just able to refrain himself from violence whenever he sees his God ‘violated’. Derek Hutchinson’s strong and captivating performance is one of the inspirational highlights of the evening. Helen Griffin as his submissive wife hits just the right note with her quiet, carefully observed underplaying, making the moment she ‘turns’ all the more rewarding to watch. Another strong and committed performance from John Cording near perfectly painted the picture of the god-possessed minister of the village chapel. There is no doubt that people of this persuasion caused much deep harm and that being victims of their own inheritance, they knew of no other way to behave, is no mitigation. They were outraged by the closeness of the young Dilys to the boy but her motives were more desperate than even they suspected. Here was a magnificent performance by Catrin Stewart, still to complete her final year of study at the Welsh College of Music and Drama. She will have agents queuing up for her as soon as she leaves. The decent lodger, a medical student we know only as Burn acknowledges Huw’s plight and tries to offer succour, Jamie Ballard gives us a robust and convincing performance that brings a note of optimism into this otherwise tragic tale. Light relief is providing by the gossipy daily woman, Rachel Lumberg is delightfully amusing but at times does just slip over the line into caricature. I would like to say that this was a very successful piece of theatre art; it was certainly much the most satisfying of the National Theatre Wales’ offerings so far. But Osborne is an extremely demanding author particularly from his leading men. He acknowledged Peter O’Toole as the finest Jimmy Porter not Kenneth Haig who played the part in the opening production of Look Back in Anger. Iwan Rheon and all the cast gave sterling performances but the silver needs more polish and the fires in the bellies need to burn more brightly. |
Reviewed by: Michael Kelligan |
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