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A CurtainUp London Review
Thérèse Raquin
Nona Shepphard's "radical adaptation" sets up the tortured soul of Thérèse Raquin (Julie Atherton) trapped by her aunt into marrying her cousin, the ineffectual and sickly Camille (Jeremy Legat). For what seems a very long time in the first act, Thérèse sits looking bored with her existence. She is like a woman with all the happiness drained out of her. This is until she falls for Camille's childhood friend, the artist Laurent (Ben Lewis) and embarks on a destructive but passionate love affair. The clarity of the singing of the verse means that we do not miss any of Zola's fine detail as to the characters and their motives. Running through this nineteenth century novel are the physical details of what makes us behave the way we do, the physiological connections and the inevitability of heredity, in accordance with Zola belonging the School of Naturalism and influenced by Charles Darwin's ideas on evolution. The production starts with "Sang et nerfs", "Blood and Nerves", and later to describe the seemingly quiet Thérèse the Chorus contrasts this quietude with the physical activity of all our bodies. "The heart is beating/Eyes are feasting/Blood is pumping/Sweat is trickling/Breath is quickening/Muscles are quivering/Lust is pricking/Synapses firing/Jumping across the gap/Chemical electrical chemical/Messages are running up and down the spinal cord/To and from the brain." Dominating the story of Thérèse and her lover is the figure of Madame Raquin (Tara Hugo) "She took me in and she brought me up/Saved me from want but she smothered my life/Refined me and dried me so I lied how I lied." This is Thérèse's description of the two pronged fork of her adoptive mother/aunt/mother in law. Tara Hugo sings the part of the manipulative mother with great skill, her pale and cool detachment placing her apart from others but spoiling the petulant Camille. Julie Atherton in a performance a million miles away from her lead in Avenue Q, except of course for her beautiful voice, is the morose, disapproving Thérèse holed up in the haberdashery shop and victim of her passionate nature. Ben Lewis has a strong voice and physical presence as shirtless throughout, his muscular arms and build contrast with the weedy Camille. There are moments of delightful staging, one where when Laurent goes to the morgue and the chorus hold up white sheets for Laurent to look under, one by one, and see the heads of the bloated, drowned bodies in his feigned search for Camille's body. There is the social game of dominoes, with Madame Raquin presiding over the guests with the chanting of the numbers in archaic form, "deuce-ace, double-deuce. . . four death. . .devil four" with a rhythmic, atmospheric clacking of the domino tiles. This unusual production needs to be seen! After a hiatus, the pub downstairs has reopened and the Box Office has a new space on the ground floor.
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