The play is on in the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, a relatively small space in which the floor is the stage and so in order to get to your seats you have to walk across the stage. For this production, the whole floor has been covered with bark and twigs and the area has been surrounded by thin, gnarled trees. The fact that you literally have to walk through this claustrophobic, scary wood in order to get to your seats, feeling the bark underfoot, immediately and completely submerges you into the play. It had me on edge and engaged before the play had even started. In terms of seats, by the way, it is all unallocated and so if you can I would definitely recommend sitting right at the front. Being so close to the characters and being on the level of the woods without any heads in front of you really does suck you into the world of the play.
The story and script itself was a bit perplexing to say the least. It started off relatively 'normal' and then all of a sudden the Woman (Lesley Sharp) starts flitting between a deep southern American drawl and an RP English accent. Then all of a sudden she goes from being in the woods, to on a bridge, to in a shop with an area of outstanding natural beauty at the back, to a park, and finally to a mental asylum, somewhere along the line crossing the Atlantic. The conclusion that I could draw was that this was a woman who, for a reason which eventually was almost made apparent, was severely mentally collapsing. I was hoping for, and expecting some sort of gradual hinting that lead to a eureka moment where I understood exactly the profound meaning of the play. Unfortunately I experienced no such moment. The monologue at the end which sort of served to put the pieces together clarified some things but then made others even more confusing. It was like being presented with a beautiful puzzle but then all the pieces inside the box came from different sets and no matter how many different ways you move the pieces around, they never quite fit together.
Having said all of this, the production itself was absolutely excellent. The design was so clever, with its terribly realistic, eerie and immersive woods, and even the particularly emotive, haunting lighting that further immersed the audience into the woods. In between each section there is a complete blackout and a storm of piercing noises. When the lights came back on the actors were in entirely different positions - one time on the floor in front of me. It created the idea of the woman's gradual mental deteriation, and her fear of what she will see each time she wakes up. I don't think that I have ever felt emotions (namely fear) so vividly in any production, which is particularly impressive given that I didn't really have a scooby about what was going on. I found the production completely riveting.
At the beginning of the play, a woman stands over a young boy who lies shivering in a hut in the middle of the woods. She has rescued him from a snowstorm, and a relationship between the two grows. It is her unwavering devotion to Boy that seems to get Woman through the agony she is suffering. She takes Boy with her everywhere she goes, dragging him along the muck as he lies lifelessly on a sack.
In the play there are almost two 'worlds'; the world of the woods, and then the world which is removed from the heart of the action, nestled away behind a glass box high in the walls of the theatre. It is a kitchen, that belonged to Woman multiple years ago, which is entirely out of sight until at various intervals it is filled with clinical light, the red light of a baby monitor and the shrieks of a young baby. It was the relationship between these two physical worlds that were most useful in 'explaining' the story. Woman was able to see into her past, which sat high in the treetops, after stumbling across a deflated 'baby boy' balloon and a tiny knitted jumper. We learn at the end that the woman had smothered her baby when she was a new mother - perhaps suggesting that everything we had been watching for the last hour and a half were all taking place in her mind- maybe the woods were metaphorical and the Wolf was a figment of her imagination.
In the play there are almost two 'worlds'; the world of the woods, and then the world which is removed from the heart of the action, nestled away behind a glass box high in the walls of the theatre. It is a kitchen, that belonged to Woman multiple years ago, which is entirely out of sight until at various intervals it is filled with clinical light, the red light of a baby monitor and the shrieks of a young baby. It was the relationship between these two physical worlds that were most useful in 'explaining' the story. Woman was able to see into her past, which sat high in the treetops, after stumbling across a deflated 'baby boy' balloon and a tiny knitted jumper. We learn at the end that the woman had smothered her baby when she was a new mother - perhaps suggesting that everything we had been watching for the last hour and a half were all taking place in her mind- maybe the woods were metaphorical and the Wolf was a figment of her imagination.
The performances given by Lesley Sharp as Woman and Tom Mothersdale as Wolf were outstanding, especially when provided with such a difficult script. Sharp illustrated the vulnerability of Woman, and her intense mental agony as she paces up and down the stage, all folded into herself, biting her nails as Wolf relentlessly taunts her. I couldn't help but feel an aching sympathy for this woman. Tom Mothersdale as Wolf is terrifying, particularly when speaking in his menacing southern American drawl. He switches between characters, a wolf in sheep's clothing, following Woman wherever she goes in her bids to escape from him. He haunts her intently. Initially he appears in a bright yellow tracksuit, skulking in the corner of the woods, calling Woman 'mama'. I believe that he was some sort of projection of the Woman's fears of what her son may have grown up to be after the way she treated him, almost like the adult ghost of her murdered baby taking his revenge. Whatever it was, he elicited such fear in me and the rest of the audience. When he came near I physically pushed myself back into my seat. His performance was really gripping.
So while the play is, admittedly, a bit vague in what it is presenting, the production itself is really something special. With the remarkable design by Naomi Dawson, under the superb direction of Lucy Morrison and with really cutting performances from the cast, it is definitely a production that I would recommend seeing.