This is a curious affair. There’s some razor-sharp wit from Gary McNair in a well-worn story that is haphazardly known by any literary aware audience within the staging of the final act in the artistic directorship of the incumbent artistic director.
We are witness to well-known set pieces: Pip and his less than well-to-do beginnings, his encounter with a scary man on a heath, the breaking of his heart by Estella, the intensely bitter Miss Havisham, her final dénouement in fire and the pretensions Pip has to greatness, all part of what is expected. Adaptations are always, from one medium to another, compromises of what to keep in and what to leave out. Here McNair has given us a strong adaptation based upon the characters he has encountered.
Fortunately, it can be argued that it is a character-driven novel and, given the cast we have here, it is easy to see why it appeals as it has a very hefty character-driven set of actors. They shine and they manage to carry the bits in between the set pieces, from the time upon a heath to the fire in the Havisham household to a happy ending which is not quite how Dickens imagined it; but we are in Glasgow…
It is this development and springboard which works, to an extent, and issues its own set of problems. In terms of characters, a writer who ploughs his own trade as an actor has the heart of an actor beating through his pen. Andy Arnold, the director, manages to keep their excesses in check, as caricature is always a danger, whilst allowing them free creative reign to fill the stage. It is a powerful piece of pathos and drama which is tonally about the people within it.
The set design and technical craft on display has a lot of playfulness—getting the headstones to speak and tell part of the tale, establishing the convention of the pony and trap without the coconuts etc—whilst the bigger issues it raises—about how society views and sees a human in terms of their wealth and status more than their ability to contribute as Joe has—is a wee bit lost. But the set manages to capture so much of the time and Arnold, along with his creative crew, has made great use of all of what the Tron has to offer.
It has the pace needed to keep us engrossed until around the mid-point of the second half, where things start to dip. Whether that is the fault of a script or direction is difficult to fathom, but it is lacking some of the more 'small p' political messages—of Pip being seduced by wealth would have been more dramatic as he turns back to his old home life, with more of his time in the metropolis dramatised.
It is, however, a fitting, if a little baggy, cheerio. There were many who loved, laughed and applauded—including those who rose from their seats at the end. For me, however, it was fine. Perhaps I was looking for a scathing memorial which eviscerated a society of greed into which we have turned. I may have hoped for too much, but Arnold gave me a deft piece of theatre which provided us with a fine cast, putting in the miles in honour of a man who deserves to be shackled like Magwitch to Scottish theatre for eternity given the canon of work he has done already. Once again, too much to hope for, perhaps.