So we wanted to choose a play for the festive season. Something with snow and tinsel, ‘how about a ghost story’, we thought, ‘that’s festive’. I then remembered a play I had seen on television in the 1980’s, it had been a ghostly tale with visits to a morgue and the enacting of dark deeds… Thérèse Raquin.
When reading the play I couldn’t put it down and finished the whole thing in one sitting. I was completely gripped by the action from the outset and had to see how it would end. However, I soon realised that it wasn’t so much a ghost story but rather an intriguing psychological thriller, set in the back streets of 1860s Paris. The ghost I had remembered was not a physical apparition but was actually the haunting of the main characters whose sense of reality dissolves as a direct consequence of their actions.
This is a tale of passion, madness and consequences – where people are trapped in a waking nightmare of guilt and paranoia.
So I do hope you enjoy our festive offering, less tinsel perhaps but rather more terrible transgressions. Ho, ho, ho…..
Publicity #1: Thérèse Raquin
Publication: Shoreham Herald
Publication Data: December 6 2018 issue – Guide Section – p37
Correspondent: Round-up
Text Header: Dark drama, comedy fun and young talents!
Text:
Wick Theatre Company’s latest production is dark, dramatic and will kepp you guessing until the final curtain.
Performances of Thérèse Raquin run from Wednesday, Decemebr 12 to Saturday, December 15 at the Barn Theatre, Southwick Street, Southwick, BN42 4TE. Curtain up is at 7.45pm.
Spokeswoman Rosemary Bouchy said: “Young and beautiful, Thérèse Raquin is bored and unhappy in an arranged marriage to her first cousin, the sickly Camille. She is carefully watched by her oppressive mother-in-law, but despite this embarks on a reckless affair with her husband’s childhood friend, Laurent. This lends heady excitement to Thérèse’s life which for the most part is dreadfully dull, enlivened only by a weekly game of dominoes with elderly friends of Madame Raquin, the fussy and garrulous doctor Grivet and Michaud, a retired policeman.
No one seems to have noticed this passionate affair taking place under their very noses, but Thérèse and Laurent are in constant fear of discovery and their frustration leads them into making a fatal decision.
Tickets on 01273 597094 or www.wicktheatre.co.uk
Publicity #2: Thérèse Raquin
Publication: Shoreham Herald
Publication Data: December 6 2018 issue – Guide Section – p41
Correspondent: Ten of the best
Text Header: 10 Theatre
Publicity #3: Thérèse Raquin
Publication: Shoreham Herald
Publication Data: December 13 2018 issue – Guide Section – p35
Correspondent: Phil Hewitt
Text Header: You won’t condone, but you might understand
Text:
Susanne Crosby well remembered the celebrated 1970s TV adaptation of Emile Zola’s Thérèse Raquin. It gave her nightmares.
Now she is revisiting it from an altogether different perspective, playing Thérèse Raquin’s mother-in-law Madam Raquin in Wick Theatre Company’s production of the late-19th-centure French classic: “What makes it so good is that you just never know what is going to happen,” Susanne say.
Young and beautiful, Thérèse Raquin is bored and unhappy in an arranged marriage to her first cousin, the sickly Camille. She is carefully watched by her oppressive mother-in-law, but despite this embarks on a reckless affair with her husband’s childhood friend, Laurent. In constant fear of discovery, they make a fatal decision …
“I was quite small when I watched the adaptation on TV,” Susanne remembers. “My poor mother couldn’t have known what was going to pop up on the screen. I remember the morgue scenes! I had nightmares! But when I read the play, the play ends slightly differently.
As for Madame Raquin: “For an actor the role is incredibly challenging. It is the most challenging role I have ever played. It has got absolutely nothing that I can connect with I have had to find absolutely everything myself in order to play her truthfully. She is constantly worrying about everything. She is always wrapping up [the sickly] Camille. She is always worrying about what he can eat because of his stomach. She is the complete helicopter parent, always hovering around him.”
And amid all this, Thérèse is completely taken for granted, ordered around and ignored: “If you imagine 30 years of being treated like that, and then the dashing Laurent comes in. He sees everything that they have got and he wants a slice of it. You can completely understand why they fall in love. I don’t agree with what they do, absolutley not, but you can understand how that repression can build into an explosion. At the beginning you see Thérèse and Laurent happily in love. It starts there and then everything just basically falls apart for everybody after they commit the dreadful act and then they are haunted by it. It destroys everything. You can’t condone what they do, but you can understand how somebody so downtrodden can be pushed towards moments of anger and passion.”
December 12-15, the Barn Theatre, Southwick Street, Southwick. Curtain-up is at 7.45pm. 01273 597094
Publicity #4: Thérèse Raquin
Publication: Shoreham Herald
Publication Data: December 13 2018 issue – Guide Section – p37
Correspondent: Ten of the best
Text Header: 9 Theatre
Review #1: Thérèse Raquin
Publication: Shoreham Herald
Publication Data: December 20 2018 issue – page 25
Reviewer: Elaine Hammond
Text Header: Wick Theatre slow-burner reaches a dramatic climax
Text:
Wick Theatre Company’s version of Thérèse Raquin was a slow-burner but boy did it get exciting towards the end.
Rose Hall-Smith and Alex Bond played off each well as the doomed lovers Thérèse and Laurent. And Alex showed the different sides of the artist’s character as he battled guilt and paranoia following the murder of Rose’s husband, Camille.
Part ghost story, part psychological thriller, this twisted tale of consequences was played out like a 19th century melodrama backed up with some dramatic violin music during the scene changes.
It was mostly quite softly spoken and in a way I felt I was looking through a window at other people’s lives rather than watching a performance. Perhaps that was because of the set, which was a fantastic French salon above a shop, with bedroom and hallway off. It was so good, you at first forgot it was a stage and saw it only as a room.
There were some clever tricks, including the ‘ghost’ of Camille reappearing in his portrait, which I admit I missed at first [blame the eyesight].
Alongside all the drama and tragedy, there was comedy, too, and David Peaty as Grivet and Derek Fraser as Michaud making a geat double act. David never fails to deliver and here, he had great fun with his umbrella. There seemed to be a lot of fuss over nothing with this prop in the first half but you found out in the second half why attention had to be drawn to it!
I may not have seen the ‘ghost’ but I definitely saw David’s eyebrows, raised at just the perfect moment, too.
Susanne Crosby as Madame Raquin had a tough job, starting off strident and ending up, well, the very opposite. She did, unfortunately, lose her place a little last Wednesday but let us put that down to opening night nerves and acknowledge it is a pretty weighty text. It did not spoil the overall effect of the drama and in the end it was Rose and Alex doing battle in the final scene that really made the evening.
A final note for the audience, please, for goodness sake, turn off your phone when you go to the theatre. There were at let three calls during the first half, which was totally unacceptable, and with the addition of noise coming from the café, it did make it rather difficult to concentrate.
It is a shame for all that hard work to be spoiled.
Review #2: Thérèse Raquin
Publication: NODA
Publication Data: December 13 2018
Reviewer: Dee Sharpe
Text Header: Wick Theatre slow-burner reaches a dramatic climax
Text:
Set in Paris in the 19th Century the play has Thérèse Raquin living with her painstakingly fussy husband Camille and dominating mother in law in an apartment above their shop. Stifled and taken for granted she has embarked on a passionate affair with Camille’s artist friend Laurent. The pair plot to kill Camille, carrying out their evil plan on a river trip. Camille’s mother, utterly bereft, has no idea of the pair’s treachery and eventually encourages them to wed. As the play unfolds their own guilt torments them to the extent that they come to loathe each other and the suspense ratchets up until the final powerful, unexpected twist at the end.
This complex play was directed with superb precision and expertly performed by an accomplished cast. The tension was palpable, yet beautifully controlled, and the touches of humour from Grivet (David Peaty) and Michaud (Derek Fraser) were droll and entertaining.
The scene changes were fast and smooth; executed in blackout with thriller style violin music which added to the building suspense. The lighting created appropriate moods and the changing daylight through the window was very effective. The reflection creating the eerie ghostliness to Camille’s portrait was a master touch.
I loved the elaborate costumes, which looked tailor made and really suited each actor. I especially liked Thérèse’s fitted jackets and skirts or gowns with their leg-of-mutton sleeves and the men’s high collar shirts with cravats. I was not so keen on Madame Raquin’s wig which was shiny and synthetic looking, but the ageing up face paint was so realistic it took me a little while to realise it was the much younger, glamorous Susanne Crosby.
The simple set with the two curtained arches, one to a hallway and one to the bedroom worked well. There was a table with chairs, a dresser, chaise longue and a couple of windows. Lovely touches such as a glowing fire and flickering oil lamps which could be turned on and off added authenticity to the proceedings, and there was a beautiful antique wheelchair. The portrait of Camille got some laughs for its sheer perfection and I loved the attention to detail which had a discoloured area on the wall when the old picture was removed in order to put the portrait up. The realism of the set allowed it to fade into the background, which afforded a much greater focus on the claustrophobic and jittery atmosphere.
There were strong performances from the actors and perfectly timed laughs which did not detract from the growing disquiet.
Rose Hall-Smith and Alex Bond as Thérèse and Laurent portrayed a believable relationship that had the flip side of love and hate. The way their passion deteriorated into guilt and loathing was convincing and magnetic. Each was skilful in portraying a character imprisoned by their own desires, and then by the situation that their crime had created.
Matthew Arnold as Camille was the perfectly pernickety mother’s boy ensuring the audience totally empathised with Térèse’s repulsion towards him.
Susanne Crosby inhabited the character of Madame Raquin making her both dominating but also likeable. Her body language made you almost feel the aches and pains in her legs. Her pièce de résistance was a convincing portrayal of paralysis and her twisted smile of victory at the end.
David Peaty and Derek Fraser gave winning performances as Grivet and Michaud bringing a light-hearted contrast and highlighting the way social niceties can cloak the darkest realities.
This was a melodrama bursting with plot, character, suspense and atmosphere delivered with sensitivity and skill. It is another triumph for Wick Theatre Company. Well done and thanks for inviting me.
Comment #1: Thérèse Raquin
Publication: email
Publication Data: December 16 2018
Commentator: John Simpson
Text Header: Feedback and thanks
Text:
[In the run-up to performing Thérèse Raquin, Wick Theatre was contacted by John Simpson, the Treasurer of St Nicholas Church Old Shoreham, bringing our attention a link between the church and our production.
Princess Bariatinsky (1871-1921), a Russian Princess lies buried in St Nicolas churchyard, was also an actress under her own name Lydia Yavorska. Lydia appeared in Thérèse Raquin in 1912 at the Court in London, the Opera House in Tunbridge Wells and the Opera House Cheltenham.
Wick Theatre responded to this local connection with a piece in the programme. [see Thérèse Raquin– Achive].]
Subsequently John Simpson wrote:
First of all I must tell you that my wife and I had a most enjoyable evening last night. It’s been quite a long time since we have been to live theatre and we had forgotten just how good an experience it can be. The production was excellent and all the roles very well played – there were no weak links in the cast.
Because of my interest in the Russian Princess I had recently re-read the play. Zola didn’t write ‘fun’ pieces so I was expecting it to be pretty gloomy. However the cast were very successful in picking up the bits of humour and irony which I had missed in my own reading and that relieved the grimmer elements and made the experience more enjoyable while still being challenging.
Thank you very much indeed for the wonderful way you featured the connection with Princess Bariatinsky in the programme. Even a small paragraph mentioning her would have been very welcome so I was really delighted to see the way her picture leapt out from the page. We feel that she has had a very raw deal, with theatre historians in both Russia and England either ignoring her achievements or attributing them to others, so we really appreciate your help in our campaign to restore her name.
We were also very impressed with the overall design of the programme. The layout is very clear and you use a typeface which means that we didn’t need to constantly reach for the spectacles. I really loved the picture you used for the cover. It summed up the play in a single image and made me think of photographs of Lydia in similar roles.”
