MY
COUSIN RACHEL
Chelmsford
Theatre Workshop at the Old Court
17.12.11
Daphne
du Maurier's romantic melodrama was already a period piece when it
came out in the 1950s.
CTW's
Christine Davidson achieved a good sense of that stifled,
strait-laced Victorian sensuality in her painstaking production of
Diana Morgan's stage adaptation.
An
aroma of mulled wine filled the festive foyer, where the decorations
included a teapot for the all-important bitter tisane. We heard
evocative incidental music specially composed by Andrea
Blackwood-Barnes.
Certain
of the cast caught the style more successfully than others. I found
the "casual generation" –
Sophia Charalambous [Louise] and Harry Sabbarton [Phillip] –
a little too contemporary, though both had impressive stage presence,
and Phillip's drowning in love and descent into madness were movingly
done.
Kevin
Stemp was a very convincing Italian in a crucial supporting role,
Richard Baylis made the most of the old retainer Seecombe, with Nick
Gulvin as the level-headed lawyer.
Catherine
Bailey made Rachel, Phillip's "torment", a striking,
smouldering femme fatale, immediately at ease as the new chatelaine
of Barton, reciting a litany of names, toying with the "infatuated,
besotted" boy. Their scenes together were some of the strongest;
the confrontation of Louise and Rachel, and Louise's early dialogue
with Phillip were also grippingly dramatic.
The
set, solid and enclosed, with a bevy of servants to deck the hall,
was a stylish, telling presence in this intense psychological drama.
