The Southwark Playhouse's projection driven "Howl's Moving Castle" quite successfully falls in just about every pitfall of cinematic theatre you could conceive of. A show as thin as the 2-D imagery.
The story of "Howl's Moving Castle", a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, was new to me and I'm told is much more interesting than what we get in this adaptation. Reduced to only three on-stage performers plus a couple of voiceovers, an efficient running time is the only benefit. Fantasy works because the characters seem real yet here no one develops as more than a cipher.
For what it's worth, the story centers on a young girl who for no obvious reason is turned into an old woman by an evil witch. In this form she cleans the castle of a cheeky magician named Howl and in the process defeats the witch, redeems Howl and saves a firey thing called Calcifer from enslavement. The whys and wherefores are beyond me and nothing in the show made me care one iota about any of them.
Daniel Ings does a fair job of at least making Howl engaging, basically a caricature but at least a charming one. Susan Sheridan never quite felt real as the old woman, far too knowing and wise for a young girl magicked old, but she's a trooper and gamely acted like what she was saying made sense. Kristin McGuire, who also directed with her husband Davy, horrifically overacts throughout turning the witch into a pantomime villain and the young girl into an irritation. Both the voiceovers, one by the inimitable Stephen Fry, were excellent though the poor quality speakers meant words got lost.
Daniel Ings does a fair job of at least making Howl engaging, basically a caricature but at least a charming one. Susan Sheridan never quite felt real as the old woman, far too knowing and wise for a young girl magicked old, but she's a trooper and gamely acted like what she was saying made sense. Kristin McGuire, who also directed with her husband Davy, horrifically overacts throughout turning the witch into a pantomime villain and the young girl into an irritation. Both the voiceovers, one by the inimitable Stephen Fry, were excellent though the poor quality speakers meant words got lost.
The McGuire, husband and wife team are much more interested in pretty pictures and at least on this count they mostly score a hit. Though much less polished than those produced by "1927" (who outclass this production by some margin), they do have a tatty beauty to them; vast vistas projected on the quirky paper set. The lighting could do with some adjustment however, actors frequently with their faces darkened and mountains projected on their chests, and the fight scenes look like awkward Dragon Balls Z combat. Fyfe Dangerfield has provided some eerie tunes as a score of sorts, but it doesn't integrate well, feeling frequently overblown and false.
Overall a disappointing production. An ambitious idea delivered in a simplistic fashion with all the magic lost along the way. A novel variation for Christmas but not a successful one.
(Review of Performance on Wednesday, January 4th, 2012 at the Southwark Playhouse)
Overall a disappointing production. An ambitious idea delivered in a simplistic fashion with all the magic lost along the way. A novel variation for Christmas but not a successful one.
(Review of Performance on Wednesday, January 4th, 2012 at the Southwark Playhouse)
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