Descending to a Fantastic Ending
On Wednesday, October 7th, I saw the Royal Exchange Company perform Orpheus Descending at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester. I went to see this event with college as it was part of my Drama and Theatre Studies coursework and I‘m very grateful that Peter Hartley and Jenny Martin chose to see this play as it was a fantastic performance and a great watch. The show’s director was Sarah Frankcom and starred Luke Norris as Valentine Xavier and Imogen Stubbs as Lady Torrance. The play was originally written by Tennessee Williams and is based on the Greek legend Orpheus and presents the idea reaching for too much freedom too soon can lead to drastic consequences. The play takes place over two months from early February to Easter.
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The Royal Exchange Theatre is a theatre in-the-round which caused some viewing problems during areas of performance but Frankcom used the space effectively by ensuring that the actors were not in one area of space for too long, to ensure the audience had a chance the see most of the action clearly. She also expanded stage space by having some set pieces within the audience’s viewing area. However the use of the stage was not effective during key scenes such as the opening of the confectionery, the phone calls made and scenes that happened near Val’s room. These areas of set design were not placed in appropriate areas for all 700 audience members to see the acting that occurred there clearly. This could mean loss of understanding of part of the play and also missing key character developments that are important to the storyline.
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The use of proxemics between Lady Torrance and David Cutrere were used effectively and directed well by Frankcom as it suggests the feelings of both characters are strong and suggests unresolved history. She does this in the scene where Lady confesses to her former lover David, that she was once pregnant with his child but had an abortion. As the scene develops, Lady’s speech pace decreases and her tone clear, emphasising key words that have a powerful emotion behind them such as “I carried your child in my body”, getting closer to David as she speaks, suggesting her trying to project her feeling of loss unto David. This is a truly moving performance by Stubbs as you believe that she is lady is portrays the emotion as if this were her real life, true emotion and a great example of fantastic acting.
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In the last scene, Morag Siller who plays Nurse Porter creates great tension which, to those unaware of the plot, builds greatly. Siller uses pitch very well as it gives her character this kind and happy aura, but this turns into a sickly-sweet tone when Porter accuses Lady of adultery. Porter delivers the line “And as soon as I saw your husband, I knew it wasn’t his” with a slower pace and a clearer tone than she usually does to emphasise the importance of the line to ensure all audience members hear it and understand what Porter is saying to Lady. This stuns the audience momentarily as they believe they are the only people, apart from the adulterers that know about the affair. This already gives the audience a great sense of secrecy but a sense of relief as we know Lady can finally be happy with Val and her child.
However just as the audience is lulled into a false sense of security, Mark Lewis who plays Jabe Torrance walks down the stairs, clutching a gun, pointing and aiming at Val. The ill man, trembles holding the weapon showing the audience that even in death, Jabe is a man who denies his opponents mockery over him and always has a counter attack. This shocks the audience as you are always led to believe Jabe does care for Lady, however this act shows he merely wants to claim ownership of a woman. He is the man that denies Lady true happiness by killing her own father and it is fitting that he commit’s the ultimate act that ends all chance of her ever being happy.
Overall, the company created an effective use of drama that portrayed Williams’ play very successfully. Frankcom’s directing choices work well with the acting style of the cast. The theatre was used very effectively although it did have viewing difficulties, meaning actions could have been missed by some audience members, that added to the character and the performance of the play. I really wish I could see it again as it was highly influential and showed me what the right training and experience could do for a career and a performance.
