The Moors

A superb cast and a director with an assured and inspired sense of imagery and style lift this rather smarty-pants play into something that delights and entertains.  The moors of the title – described frequently in the text as ‘bleak’, ‘windswept’ and ‘boring’, but also a stimulus to wild imaginations – are Brontë territory.  (Few clichés are left unturned – or over-turned.)  But don’t expect Charlotte, Emily or Anne to appear, or any of their literary creations.  It is, however, a play that will give some satisfaction to those cognoscente who can pick references to the novels by the Sisters Brontë, or other 19^th century novels, Gothic or otherwise, and the biographies of certain literary figures.

The characters do indeed inhabit a parsonage, but the alpha-woman is the forbidding and peremptory Agatha (Alex Aldrich, she of the riveting stage presence), forever bossing about her younger sister Hudley (Anna McCarthy), a frustrated if utterly talentless novelist, and their opportunist maid Marjory (Grace Lowry), also known as ‘Mallory’, depending on whether she is the pregnant scullery maid, or the parlour maid, suffering from typhus.  There is also a dog (Dion Mills, barefoot, shirtless, but in a tail coat), known as the Mastiff (which may or may not remind people of Emily Brontë’s faithful hound Keeper).  He is largely ignored, except when Agatha barks, ‘Down!’ in a way which leaves the Mastiff thoroughly cowed – and depressed. 

Naturally, into this mix must come a stranger, or outsider, or intruder, a governess Emilie (Zoe Boesen), come to teach Branwell’s child, but is there a child?  In fact, she’s lured there by Branwell’s extraordinary and we gather highly erotic letters.  But did he write them?  Branwell?  Yes, Branwell, but unlike the sad drunk of reality, the Brontë brother on whom his sisters lavished such fruitless devotion and admiration, this Branwell has been wisely bricked up in the attic by Agatha.  Naturally (again) Emilie is subject first to this disappointment, but also betrayals, shocks, privations, walks on the wet and freezing moors, and the importunate pleadings of Hudley to read her diary.  Meanwhile, the Mastiff stumbles upon an injured Moor Hen (Olga Makeeva) in black bombazine.  He releases on her all his pent up philosophical and theological speculations, and his thwarted affections.  She is understandably nervous: he is a big dog and she is a small bird – her apprehension quite justified.

The dialogue throughout is mix of high ‘Victorian’ and contemporary colloquial, delivered dead straight without ‘English accents’, giving yet more distance.  Of course, there is Ms Makeeva’s Russian lilt – working nicely to make her Wood Hen an exotic outsider – and Ms Aldrich’s imperious bass bullying.

All this takes place on a small and completely bare stage surrounded by green drapes – for interiors – or black drapes – for the moors.  Tendrils of mist and fog drift through scenes on the moors, and a fine mizzle falls from above.  The actors actually get wet, the one concession to naturalism.  Eugyeene The’s design is bold, throwing things back on our imaginations, and Stephen Nicolazzo fills the space with powerful images and the beautifully judged choreographed movements of his cast. 

But if the play itself is a riff (if that’s the word) on Victorian sentiments and plot devices, it isn’t much more than that – a riff - even while upending some well-known (well-worn?) tropes, gender reversal being the most salient.  Ms Silverman has done her research and what she does with it is knowingly clever and she applies a great deal of perverse wit, but she doesn’t really have much point to her pastiche.  It’s a bit of an academic game.  Or satire, but in the name of what? 

All that said, the cast and Mr Nicolazzo continually lift the show into something wonderful, overcoming its thinness.  The bright-eyed manipulations of maid Marjory/Mallory are curiously believable – and funny.  (Ms Lowry is a wonderful physical comedienne.)  Governess Emily’s growing sexuality and power, and carapaced Agatha’s surrender to her, is suddenly touching as well as funny.  Hudley’s bewilderment on taking her revenge is a neat reversal of expectation.  (Ms McCarthy’s resentful innocence is another comic coup.)  The increasingly fraught conversations between the Moor Hen and the Mastiff make perfect sense – once you accept the premise – and you may as well. 

Overall, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable evening at Red Stitch even while what’s happening on stage is, if you step back from it, puzzling or plain ridiculous.  At the interval, some of the bemused audience were asking, ‘Err… is there a point to this?’  But in the end, we find ourselves admiring the cast, their director, the minimalist design, the finely judged lighting (Sadie Sfetkidis) and the tongue-in-cheek sound and music (Daniel Nixon).  The Moors is supremely theatrical; the playwright is having fun and we do too.

Michael Brindley  

Photographer: Teresa Noble