11:22am Tuesday 1st June 2010
Hailed as the king of horror fiction, the aptly-named Stephen King lives up to the title in his novel Misery … a taut, psychological chiller, where the terror is all the more scary for being implied rather than overt.
Bringing that fear to life for a live audience is a big ask… horror rarely works in a stage setting, the sense of theatricality often makes suspending disbelief harder to achieve than in a cinema. Scene changes and the space restrictions a stage impose add to the unreality of a play in a way that film-makers rarely have to contend with.
So translating a subtle and nuanced chiller for the theatre could not have been without its difficulties. Add in the fact that this atmospheric production was a two-hander, with neither of the brace of actors absent from the stage for any significant time, and the quality of this production and the skill of the adapter Stephen Moore are firmly underlined.
Paul Sheldon (Matthew Hewitt) is a confident, award-winning author, with little real regard for the fans who earned him his success. But pride, inevitably, comes before a fall, and soon he is living to rue the day he ever created his most famous character Misery Chastaine as he meets a psychotic fan in the guise of good Samaritan Annie Wilkes (Julie Fox). He very soon discovers a new definition of Misery.
Accompanied by a haunting, and frequently sinister, bluegrass soundtrack, the two live out a claustrophic and increasingly terrifying and unpredictable few weeks together.
Julie Fox was electrifying – moving from tender concern to sociopath in a mutter, while Hewitt’s skill in conveying the arrogance of this man despite being faced with his worst nightmare was memorable. What his accent lacked in authenticity his acting more than compensated for.
Sadly, the denouement was woolly and not well realised, but didn’t detract too much from a stunning - and seriously scary - production that cranked up the tension to fever pitch, despite its theatrical setting.
Fiona Phillips
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.herefordtimes.com/trade_directory/