Lorna Irvine reviews a production that's 'visually striking' but isn't 'as spooky or affecting as it could have been'.
Kicking off the Sol Classic Cuts season at Oran Mor is Sandy Nelson's adaptation of the short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper, a 19th century rumination on the patriarchy and its limited response to female mental health problems, in the shape of John, a doctor of physics, and his wife Charlotte, sent out to a rest-home to recuperate from 'nerves'.
The yellow wallpaper of her bedroom, where she is all but tucked up by John, takes on a sinister form, as a shadowy female figure, dancer Katie Armstrong (a symbol of Charlotte's disorder), appears to her from the walls whenever her psychological bully of a husband disappears on yet another 'business trip' and she decides to put her mind to her 'fanciful' notions of writing.
Nelson as John is a little out of his depth here--a brilliant comic actor who struggles with making John both condescending in his 'my dear' infantilisation of his wife or simply in being hard enough. Hannah Donaldson as Charlotte is fine, veering wildly between sadness and desperation, but the strongest theatrical moment comes in her pas de deux with Armstrong, bringing real tenderness and pathos to a piece which relies a lot on both sound and atmosphere (excellently deployed by Andrew Cowan) in terms of music and eerie FX.
Many moments creepily rendered, then, and visually striking, but perhaps not as spooky or affecting as it could have been.
At A Play, a Pie and a Pint until June 13
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