Jamaica Inn |
Jamaica Inn is a thoroughly enjoyable tale of desolate moors, cruel smugglers, and albino priests. It is showing at the Oxford Playhouse until the 2 nd of July. Following the death of her mother, Cornish farm girl Mary Yellan (Kathryn Sumner) moves to the eerily ill-frequented Jamaica Inn in order to look after her ailing Aunt Patience (Tricia Kelly). It becomes swiftly apparent that all is not well in the inn - strange men call at odd times of night, and carts come and go in secret. Matters swiftly escalate, and the stakes are soon deadly. The cast give it their all. Kathryn Sumner is a spirited lead, while Olwen May does the best she can with the role of "The Woman" (a sort of shadow to Mary Yellan - more on this particular device later). Tricia Kelly is a heartbreakingly sympathetic Patience, and Oliver Boot is likeably roguish as Jem Merlyn. Mark Jax dominates the first act as the Joss Merlyn, Mary's tyrannical smuggler uncle, while Martin Parr's Vicar Francis Davey comes into his own in the second. The cast is filled out by Paul Mihell and Tony Boncza, and all other parts in the play are played by members of the company. The play is adapted from a novel by Daphne du Maurier, and while the play is essentially good, it has one or two flaws, which stem mostly from the difficulties of translating a novel to the stage. Mary Yellan is followed, throughout the play, by a figure credited only as "The Woman" who represents either her mother, her conscience, or just a general internal dialogue. As a narrative device, it sort-of works, but it feels very much like a narrative device, and it's a little bit forced. In a similar vein, there are several points in the play where song is used to substitute for sections that, in a book, would be given over to descriptive or expository text. Again, these don't entirely work: the lyrics are often hard to decipher, and sometimes have to carry some genuine plot-progression. This is hard enough to do in a dedicated musical, and much harder to do in an otherwise straight play. Technically, the play is excellent. The use of lighting, scenery, and props are all first-rate. The use of wire-frame models to represent animals works particularly nicely - it gets a bit of a giggle from time to time, but this never detracts from the tone of the play. There is even the creative use of chairs, coupled with a smoke machine, to create a remarkably convincing impression of the broken ground of the moors. The bottom line is, as always, should you bother spending your time and money on this play? Despite one or two flaws, I would say that you most definitely should. It is, quite simply, loads of fun. It's gothic, over the top, and has smugglers in it. When it works, it works really well. When it doesn't work, it still essentially hangs together. Dan Hemmens, 29 June 2005 |