Theatre
VINCENT m anlxron King's Theatre. Edinburgh. Tue 21—Sat 25 Oct 0...
Mention the word ‘naturalism‘ to almost anyone trained in theatre over the last generation or two and it‘s as if you'd decided to fess up to the details of some embarrassing illness. Fair enough, in a way, for the British theatre has struggled long and hard since the 605 to shed the image of an industry geared to reproducing stodgy slice of life dramas. We all make an exception with such matters as revivals of Ibsen, but generally, it's a no-no. But Nicholas Wright's play might well remind us that the form isn‘t necessarily the equivalent of crapping in the salad bowl while your boss is at your dinner table.
In it, we meet the young Vincent Van Gogh (Ruben Brinkman) who has come to 18705 London to serve his apprenticeship as an art dealer. Long before his realisation of artistic ambition, the twentysomething Vincent is gauche and desperately spiky, with a radical manic depressive cycle, and an emotionally labile Clare Higgins and Ruben Brinkman perform the Wright stuff nature that makes him difficult company. His landlady, Mrs Loyer (Clare Higgins), is a widow What‘s striking about Richard Eyre‘s emotionally irresponsible actions of an artist. who also suffers from the largely unrecognised production in front of Tim Hatley’s intricately The performances are beautifully measured. disorder. Vincent declares his love for her naturalistic Victorian kitchen design is its with Higgins showing that the stack of awards daughter Eugenie (Emma Darwell Smith), making sudden resonances with the present day. that she received in this role were very well life even more awkward, for she's having a secret Sam's college ambitions are just as easily deserved. Brinkman. too moves splendidly as the affair with the other lodger Sam (Charlie Watts), a crushed by class expectations as a working awkward youth finding his way to genius. young builder with artistic ambitions. As class kid‘s in Blairite fee-paying Britain. So, Hatley's set allows for the cooking of vegetables suddenly as he discovers love for Eugenie, too, the depression of Mrs Loyer is described for Sunday lunch on stage, the detail creating Vincent starts an affair with Mrs Loyer. The in moving detail, as if you were speaking to a striking authenticity. arrival of Vincent‘s puritanical sister Anna (Amy sufferer you know personally. And there’s You might not want to see too much naturalism Darcy), who sees the household as a nest of free much of the same post-romantic cant that we in the theatre. But if you want a good example, thinking vipers, sets the cat among the pigeons. hear today in justifying the sometimes I‘ve, ahem. got one ear. (Steve Cramer)
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