Red Shoes, adapted by Nancy Harris, RSC, The Swan, Stratford. Runs until 19 January 2025, 3☆☆☆. Review: Roderick Dungate.
Red Shoes, adapted by Nancy Harris
RSC, The Swan, Stratford
Runs until 19 January 2025,
3☆☆☆. Review: Roderick Dungate.
AD Performance 28 December 2024.
“Oh dear, what a muddle.”
I have no idea what this theatre presentation of the dark Red Shoes is trying to get at. Naturally, a major producing company like the RSC will have ups and downs, but I have never felt quite so abandoned as I did at the interval point, and it got no better. The production and adaptation pick from assorted styles of storytelling and performance – Cinderella, pantomime in general, horror, melodrama, modern music theatre, dance, and no doubt others. But adapter Nancy Harris and director/choreographer Kimberly Rampersad have failed to meld the separate styles into a whole; this is not a satisfying patchwork; it is a random set of jumble randomly stitched together.
Programme notes tell us the top team wish to explore the darker side of the story. Excellent; this is a dark story of punishment over vanity, perhaps greed. However, when dark moments are approached and there is promise of an edge to the production, the production veers away from it. It is as if the team is too nervous to commit. The dinner scene, in which people are variously stabbed, (eat your heart out Carrie) stomps towards the comedic. Hardly exploring dark threads.
I did have one moment of horror; towards the end, the Prince performs the equivalent of a musical 10 o’clock song. This is clearly meant to be ironic, but the irony does not work, the song coming, as it does, out of the blue.
But the worst, for me, speaking as a person living with recent sight loss, is the ending. Mariana (Karen’s mother) says to her now disabled daughter: ‘There are no happy endings.’ Here is darkness and here is truth. But the production cannot leave us here (it is Xmas you see) and takes us to a ghastly sentimental ending with Nikki Cheung (Karen) dancing on points, itself a method of dance which regularly damages dancers’ feet and ankles.
This would be a 2** review, except I cannot fault the commitment and energy of the performing team. Albeit their energy is rather scattergun; but they have been offered no focused sense of direction. And the colleague I was with, tells me the production, designed by Colin Richmond, is beautiful.
Cast
Karen, an orphan – Nikki Cheung
Mariella Nugent, her adoptive mother – Dianne Pilkington
Bob Nugent, her adoptive father – James Doherty
Clive, their son – Joseph Edwards
Sylvestor, the shoemaker/Priest – Sebastian Torkia
Mags – Sakuntala Ramanee
Prince – Kody Mortimer
Ensemble - Julie Armstrong/Momar Diagne/Caiti Ellen/Anya Ferdinand/Micheal Lin/Ben Redfern/Alexandra Waite-Roberts
On-stage swings – Leslie Garcia Bowman/Mia Musakambeva
Creatives
Writer – Nancy Harris
Director & Choreographer – Kimberley Ramperstad
Sets and costumes – Colin Richmond
Lighting – Ryan Day
Composer – Marc Teitler
Sound – Gregory Clarke
Illusions – Paul Kieve
Audio Describers – Ess Grange/Carolyn Smith