The Collector

The author John Fowles is on record as describing the movie based on his book The Collector as the worst novel to film adaptation ever. Wisely, then, the (oddly uncredited on the program) playwright of this new adaptation claims to have worked directly from Fowles' original, without reference to the movie. But despite this, and the playwright's insistence that she strove to "maintain the integrity of the original text", this play turned out to be much closer to the movie than the book, and even managed to drop Fowles' original poignant ending.

These comments from the playwright are drawn from the show's program, which also featured a director's note with a series of very controversial dogmatic statements - eg that "rape culture is ingrained in our every day existence" and "we are conditioning our boys to perceive women in the most superficial light. This terrifying reality makes for a bleak future". This "overarching theme of the oppression of a minority" (women are a minority?) and how we can "unify and raise boys to be respectful and considerate human beings" is implied to be the raison d'être for staging this production (despite the fact that the historical record shows quite clearly it was not Fowles' predominant intention or theme in writing the story).

But even given that this superficial take on the piece is the director’s intent, it then renders utterly inexplicable many of the directorial choices made in this truly misfired interpretation of Fowles' work. Because the woefully miscast Kristina Brew, who plays the kidnapped Miranda Grey, chose to play the vast majority of her scenes as alternately annoyed, bemused, irritated and patronising with her captor. Utterly missing was any sense of the effect of this so-called "rape culture" on her psyche, or indeed her "oppression" at the hands of kidnapper Frederick (Tristan Meecham). If anything it seemed a mild annoyance or an entertaining diversion. (If these choices sound downright puzzling, it’s even odder when you consider that Ms Brew is also the playwright behind this production). I would almost have thought the director's intent was to turn the abduction concept on its head and show that Miranda is the one who is enjoying manipulating Frederick, were that not so clearly at odds with the program notes.

As Frederick, Meecham tried hard, but was not aided by the script, which was ponderously paced, often including long scenes that went nowhere (the most memorable of these was Miranda taking a long slow wash - again an inexplicable choice, unless the intent was simply to titillate the audience with a bit of sensual limb stroking).

The staging, in the underground car park which is the venue for this production, perhaps appropriately consisted of a car in which the two actors clambered in and out of, ran around and occasionally drove. But the script, following Fowles' original, insisted that Miranda was locked in the cellar of a house. The car, therefore, was not integrated into the staging in any naturalistic way, but became instead an out of left field piece of surrealism, making the already confusing blocking even harder to follow: it was impossible to follow or even imagine where the actors were supposed to be, in what physical space - and the lack of set or props (apart from said car) gave no clue.

Clearly the "good" adaptation of Fowles' novel has yet to be written - this certainly wasn't it. It was a shame, as the dark, cold and claustrophobic venue could really have complemented the subject matter.

Alex Paige