Casanova

This stage adaption of a television romp treats the story of Casanova with a complexity — rapidly alternating among the moving, the romantic, and slapstick — that must be an enormous challenge to director and actors, apparently obtaining from Davies’s television series its approach of embedding sexual farce in an essentially romantic tale. 

To take this somewhat difficult play and give it an additional layer of humour referring to the play's performance itself is a challenge that director Jarrad West met very well; and production manager Marya Glyn-Daniel's dab hand was evident in creating the superb stage magic that seamlessly transformed one genre into another and each scene into the next, complex lighting and astute staging signalling subtlety and audience sympathy surpassing the play's intent.  Costuming was superb, and sixties and seventies songs as soundtrack proved amusing and uplifting.

The interactions between characters (including between the older and younger Casanova, Tony Turner and Ben Russell respectively) were particularly believable.  The relationship between the older Casanova and the maid Edith (Steph Roberts) was as captivating as that between the younger and his lifelong love Henriette (Amy Dunham).  Both Russell and Turner brought true pathos to their shared role; Casanova’s helpmate Rocco (Riley Bell) grounded scenes in believability; and Bojana Kos’s consummate performance as his lover Bellino equally made Casanova’s fictional life trajectory understandable.

John P. Harvey

Photographer: Helen Drum