BWW Reviews: THE TURN OF THE SCREW, The Kings Head Theatre

Operaupclose have cranked up their ambition another notch with their production of Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw. Retaining the tight intimacy that marks their work at London's Little Opera House, Signe Beckmann's elegantly plain white space is transformed by Richard Bleasdale's video projections into fields, marshes and lakes, without ever losing the eerieness of a haunted house and, under Edward Dick's claustrophobic direction, the confinement of a prison cell. 

Though Operaupclose is proving remarkably successful in bringing opera to new audiences, it's probably advisable this time to read wikipedia's plot summary before the lights go down. Armed with that knowledge, the interplay between the two abandoned children, the two adults and the two ghosts is easier to follow. Understanding the characters' relationships with one another also provides perspective for the occasionally plaintive, often aggressive, usually dissonant music played by David Eaton at the piano.

As the well-meaning, but out-manouevred Governess, Katie Bird (above) builds on her brilliant performance in Pagliacci, commanding the stage with acting every bit as impressive as her singing. She is supported by Samuel Woof and Eleanor Burke as the children, who oscillate between a winsome innocence and a destructive malevolence as the spirits of Quint (David Menezes) and Miss Jessel (Catrine Kirkman) lurk in a shadow world luring them into evil. As the everywoman unable to see what is actually happening (literally) until it is too late, Mrs Grose (Laura Casey) anchors the supernatural goings-on in the world of common-sense and getting-by, a world soon spiralling out of the control of the governess.

Britten's opera is nearly 60 years old now and the Henry James novella on which it is based is from two centuries back, but its themes of the corruption of children by their too soon entry into a sexualised adult world and of the unintended consequences of attempting to do one's best for people traumatised by past events, are as contemporary now as ever. Obviously, this is not a feelgood piece of work, even the handful of laughs from the audience little more than a release of tension, as we, so close to the action that you cannot help but feel paret of it, were left as helpless as the governess in her attempts to rescue the children. The production is, however, intense and moving, at times almost ovewhelming, and, like so much of Operaupclose's growing body of work, quite unlike anything else you will find in London or beyond.  

The Turn of the Screw continues in rep at The King's Head Theatre.

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