There’s a line in Fay Weldon’s play in which Emma Bovary’s lover Rodolphe comments, “If only Emma hadn’t taken all so seriously.” That’s her problem- she invests far too deeply in things that other people don’t consider to be nearly as important, and as a result is inevitably disappointed. Emma Bovary is not one of literature’s most sympathetic characters- a selfish spendthrift obsessed with shopping and appearances, who neglects her daughter and endures a painful, self-afflicted death. In this re-imagining of the story that takes place over breakfast on the day that Emma kills herself (not a scene in the book), Fay Weldon shows how all these little things build up in a world where it really is possible to die from frustration and boredom. The wonderfully talented director Helen Tennison directed the best Measure for Measure I’ve ever seen a few years ago, also at the tiny Rosemary Branch theatre (in which Isabella walked away from the Duke at the end- epic win), and she really is a special talent.
Tennison’s ingenious use of space involves characters entering and exiting from the cupboards, the dresser, the fireplace, to evoke the claustrophobia of provincial life where there’s no privacy and everything is everyone else’s business. The Bovarys’ morning room really resembles a real home, with the array of breakfast foods (I really enjoy watching people eat on stage- is that weird?) and household clutter. Fliss Walton is capricious, bitchy, charming and at times even sympathetic as Emma (especially when Charles throws her dancing shoes on the fire- her one tie to the glamorous life she longs for), and she’s well matched by James Burton in the thankless role of the stolid, self-satisfied Charles, the embodiment of the mediocrity and insipidity that Emma despises.
Fringe theatre doesn’t come much better than this.
(This review refers to a performance that took place on April 9th 2009)
