A review of the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of 'The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe' by Frances Corner
The RSC's staging of C.S. Lewis's 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' was approached in a very
contemporary and colourful way. I think their idea, when producing it was to interest 21st century children, who are used to fast paced entertainment and maybe have short attention spans, because they launched into the first scene with such zeal that one had a hard time keeping up with them! This was less satisfying for stoic Narnia fans who don't want to see a pantomime made of it, and I'm afraid that this production did approach that. The costumes of the children were standard wartime fare, girls in dresses, boys in trousers and shirts. The animals, however, were taken into the realm of abstraction. A unicorn for example wore a white lycra bodysuit with a white mane and horn and hooves three of four inches high attached to the fronts of her feet
so she was forced to shift from foot to foot in an equestrian manner! This, I felt was very effective and far more dignified than two people struggling about in a baggy horse costume!
The setting was minimal, when Lucy enters Narnia, the only difference between there and this world are a few illuminated twigs at the back of the stage. This, although it makes for a quick scene change and there are budget considerations of course, I found somewhat disappointing. Sets for individual scenes for example Mr Tumnus's stove and mantlepiece rose from the ground which was fair enough, but they would insist on having mysterious objects growing out of the ground whilst another scene was going on, which I found rather distracting.
Special effects, however, were excellent, when the White Witch makes the Turkish delight appear, there was a huge lightening noise, pyrotechnics went off and a tiny trapdoor in the stage flipped over and the turkish delight appeared. If you didn't anticipate it, as I didn't for the drink, it really looked like magic. The scene where Aslan flies over Narnia with Lucy and Susan on his back was, I felt, the high point of the play, a huge silk like sheet was draped over the entire stage and went up to the top at the back, a platform underneath it rose and fell gradually with the three on it, wind machines made the material billow and changing lights made it look fantastic.
The actors were, as is to be expected, varied. Professor Kirke was lovely and bumbling, Mr Tumnus, likewise, was kind and not overdone. The White Witch was brilliant, she was strong and, unconventional in the interpretation of the role, sexy. When she spoke, at some points, her voice hissed, as though she was half animal, underlining the fact that "there isn't a drop of real human blood in the Witch". Aslan despite wiggling his bottom at one point in a song (I'll get
to those!) was played with great dignity and great sensitivity to the meaning of the lines. He had a wonderfully rich and ringing voice, and the actor chose to play him as a 'King of Beasts' really an animal, with sinuous, beautiful movements, rather than just a human in fur, which I loved. One character who's quality was essential to the success of the play was Lucy. She was absolutely dreadful, no exaggeration, no unnecessary cruelty, she stank. I resent this. She was an actress in her early twenties trying act like a child, her idea of this was to say everything about two octaves above normal speech, very loud and constantly enthusiastic, bouncing around the
stage. She showed virtually no change of emotion throughout the whole play and everything she said jarred.
Another bone to pick was the songs. Who allowed these to get beyond the drawing board? When they struck up the first one my heart sank. Lucy was singing about Alice in Wonderland and Dorothy. The words were a string of cliche-d drivel by Adrian Mitchel, nothing to do with C.S. Lewis's writings. The tune was virtually nonexistent, as though someone had been given the words and just hummed the first thing that came into their heads. Aslan was made to dance and wiggle his bottom at the audience, as mentioned, and the children and the beavers did a dance routine, which was embarrassing for all concerned. I'm afraid there was no redeeming feature to them. Maybe they
were mercifully short.
Overall I think the production was a rather misguided attempt to make the book interesting to a new generation of children. What I think was ignored was the fact that these books are simply too dignified and beautiful for cartoonifying, and their magic, if left to work on its own, will work beyond the generations, as has been proved so far. The children who will love them are the ones who do not need everything to be packaged like fast food, who can let their imaginations free, and won't lose concentration in one tiny gap in speech. It shouldn't be advertised for 4 year olds up, they are simply too young to sit still (as I found out! ) 6 plus I think would be good.
I don't want this to be one long rant, though, the other three children were good, especially Peter, but I may be sentimentally biased! It was an energetic, colourful production. The battle scene was very exciting and well choreographed, and the White Witch's sleigh was beautifully designed. Aslan and the White Witch's performance saved the show, they were both mesmerising. There were some excellent special effects.
So I felt it was worth seeing as an interesting,
different interpretation, I wouldn't discourage anyone from seeing it - it may well be brought out again next year as it was so succesful. Just don't expect earth shattering theatre, because a mildly entertaining evening with a bit of jaw grinding thrown in is really all it delivers.
My thanks goes to Frances Corner who took the time and trouble to word process her review and send it in. If anyone else has seen the play and would like to review it, send me an e-mail and I'll post it on the site.
Back to Main Menu
Back