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An
Inspector Calls: Priestlys Dated Play Falls Short
John MacDonald: London Correspondent
If all one looked at were the awards and accolades
J.B. Priestly has received for An Inspector Calls (upwards of seventeen
major theater awards from New York and London) then he or she would
have a hard time expecting any less then a enjoyably moving evening
at the Playhouse Theater. Instead, the experience I had last evening
in London was far from moving, and it was only enjoyable for its endearing
campiness. Though the production had its heart in the right place,
the overblown acting, set designs and simple-minded messages had me
giggling when I shouldnt have and smiling when there wasnt
a happy face on stage.
Written at the close of WWII and set before the first World War, Priestlys
successful thriller/drama focuses on an Inspector Goole (Neall Buggy).
He calls upon the well-to-do Birling family to ask them questions
about their relationship to a young women, Eva Smith, who has just
committed suicide the day before.
His relentless probing unravels layer upon layer of connection between
the Birlings and the poor girl and how their interactions indirectly
led to her suicide. The audience is meant to understand the connections
between all the members of this (or any) society, from the poor children
mutely present around the plays edges to the great business
tycoon Mr. Birling himself (Edward Peel) and how each members
actions have consequences for others.
Even when the family realizes theyve been duped by Goole
who turns out not to have been an inspector giving information about
any actual suicide at all, the more humane members of the family,
such as Sheila (Emma Gregory), the daughter and the son Eric (Andrew
Leonard), still remain deeply shaken. But before the curtain closes,
we find out from a mysterious phone call that a young woman has just
committed suicide in the same manner Goole described.
For all Priestlys well meaning messages of community and solidarity,
no one wants to be hit over the head with them more times then is
healthy. I certainly found myself getting ill by the time the Birling
household, a claustrophobic little one room affair elevated by stilts,
crashed to the ground amid sparks and shattering china a horribly
kitschy affair.
Aside from the endearingly pathetic performance of Eric, the acting
remained trite and overblown. To bring home a message of such humanitarian
import, one needs an acting style built on restraint, and subtlety,
not trickery and cliche. Stephen Daldrys direction fails to
convey much more then a cartoonish interpretation, made all the worse
by the intimacy of the Playhouse Theater, of Preistlys classic
work.
Sounding like a soundtrack to a Stanley Kubrik film, Eyes Wide Shut
comes to mind especially, the plays score, though often hauntingly
beautiful, felt utterly out of place in Daldrys production.
The play failed to match the eerie despair of the music, which instead
succeeded in nearly parodying the work it was trying to enhance.
However, there was hope to be found in Wednesdays performance.
The set worked well to convey the separations along class lines that
so marked English society at the beginning of the 20th century, and
still do today. The poor children playing in the rain at the plays
outset, and the mute family maid chained to every whim of Mrs. Birling
(Diane Fletcher) contrasts sharply with the doll house-like Birling
home towering above them on stage. And though Buggys portrayal
of Goole is flawed in ways, he maintained well his position as representative
of the lower and middle classes especially when members of these classes
stood on stage with him as he destroyed the Birling familys
facade of innocence.
I really wanted to like this play. I wanted to find solace in its
glorification of the community, in its unique sets and in its plot
twists and unambiguous characters, but the performance of An Inspector
Calls I sat through was just too blunt, too easy and too ridiculous
to take very seriously. Though the messages of the play are timeless,
Wednesdays performance was marred by how utterly dated it seemed.
It felt like watching a bad Hollywood film, not an award-winning play. |
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