Drive Majeure, Ruben Östlund’s 2014 movie, is, on the face of it, begging not to be tailored for the stage: it includes an imposing alpine panorama and snowboarding – and that’s only for starters. Additionally it is an uncategorisable, ambiguous narrative that dangers being misunderstood and that, within the incorrect arms, may have turned out to be a snowy bellyflop. Nevertheless it’s exactly due to its high-risk content material that this present is a triumph and a surprise to behold. Director Michael Longhurst and his great solid have pulled off a stunning manufacturing that entertains and unsettles, and Tim Worth should take a bow too, as his adaptation is much more nuanced than the movie.
In entrance of us, a snowy mountainscape (designer Jon Bausor) is bathed in icy blue gentle (Lucy Carter) and framed by a gauzy proscenium arch as if to say (a matter pertinent to what follows): that is engineered, that is theatre, maintain your head. The snowboarding difficulty is stunningly resolved because the extra balanced of solid members swoop dynamically down the slanted stage into the stalls, whereas others keep put and practise on-the-spot, sporty, disco-like choreography with neon-bright skis.
All this – the flashing skis, the our bodies bent double like bunnies, the frenzied Vivaldi soundtrack – may make you snort with pleasure, however what occurs subsequent will wipe the smile off your face. The story hinges on a single false transfer: Tomas, brilliantly performed by Rory Kinnear with blokeish pallor and a bordering-on-terminal lack of self-knowledge, is on a household vacation, and, after a primary day on the slopes, is having lunch together with his spouse and kids when what is known to be a intentionally engineered avalanche swoops down – no downside, besides it seems to be uncontrolled. Tomas grabs his telephone and runs away from his spouse and kids. His act may be small and forgivable – a shameful reflex – besides that he denies it, gained’t apologise, and it turns into a probably all-encompassing, defining betrayal.
The story is partly about shifting scale: is Tomas’s motion a element or a home avalanche? Lyndsey Marshal is marvellously convincing as Ebba, his trustworthy grafter of a spouse who, at first, laughs hysterically as her means of expressing harm. Their youngsters (Florence Hunt and Henry Hunt) are astonishingly pure, bickering with one another and struggling their mother and father fallout. Their snowboarding mates, Sule Rimi as Mats and Siena Kelly as Jenny, who juggle associated points about belief, are amusing too, and Nathalie Armin is spot-on as Charlotte, self-appointed femme fatale of the slopes. All through, the actors slalom between slapstick and trauma and their slippery story by no means misses its footing.
Folks is predicated on the lifetime of Cecil Sharp (1859-1924), who was a Hampstead resident and a Cambridge-educated collector of English people songs – an vital however controversial enterprise. Nell Leyshon’s new play centres on Sharp’s encounter with two sisters, Louie Hooper and Lucy White, who labored as glovers in Somerset. Her plot is like an unaccompanied voice: fantastic, delicate and carrying. For the sisters, people music is a mom tongue (they discovered it from their mom, who has simply died because the play opens). It's their dwelling heirloom. However after Louie has given Sharp custody of the songs, she reacts with disbelieving horror on the mediocre aspic of his settings. His cultural appropriation is, for her, private theft. However it's too late to take again her present about which the true Sharp wrote, presumably to quell his conscience: “alternate is not any theft”.
As Louie, Mariam Haque is great: intense, stricken and inward, an unselfconsciously blunt critic of Sharp’s music, her face comedian when most underwhelmed. Her unforced naturalness as a singer brings out the starkness within the people songs, their unmediated attraction to the center. Sharp is plausibly performed, too, by Simon Robson, as a condescending fanatic who applies himself to the piano with aplomb. And as Lucy, Sasha Frost offers a vivacious efficiency as she grabs life amorously by the lapels – or, extra particularly, good-looking younger layabout John (robustly performed by Ben Allen). Subtract the “g” from glover, her teasing eyes appear to say, as she hand-stitches the gloves.
Roxana Silbert directs with homely simplicity, supported by musical director Gary Yershon, and the result's a captivating, touching, uncommon night that asks: who owns people tune? I wanted solely that we weren't confined to a basement theatre. This play pines for contemporary air – what a beautiful out of doors piece it will make – with a subject or three in view.
Star rankings (out of 5)
Drive Majeure★★★★★
Folks★★★★
Drive Majeure is on the Donmar Warehouse, London, till 5 February
Folks is at Hampstead theatre Downstairs, London NW3; till 5 February
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