After Dark

I still can't believe that anyone actually dared try to adapt "His Dark Materials" for the stage. I can only assume that the director shares in equals amounts of courage and insanity - both would certainly be required for this undertaking. I'm a big fan of the books after discovering them only last year, and it's been fascinating watching the interest in them waxing. I've read that a film version is under consideration, which makes some sense in the wake of Harry Potter, but when I heard about the National Theatres staging of the books and I had to double check to make certain that is wasn't based some other unrelated book of the same name. It just seemed an incredibly unlikely proposition. Naturally I had to go see it.

Thinking about the adaptation afterwards, the thing that most strikes me is how relentless it is. And I don't mean that in a bad way. Covering the three books in 6 hours is, like near everything about the play, hugely ambitious - there's an awful lot of (dark) material to cover, screeds and screeds of it. Going into the theatre, I expected that that plot would have to be trimmed considerably, but I was surprised at how faithful it was to the books. Of course, being faithful means that the whole thing moves along at a quite dizzyingly clip in an effort to squeeze everything in. It's not a perfect approach, since by necessity there's a lot of exposition going on in order to fill the audience in on the complex background against which the story is set, but it's difficult to imagine it being presented any other way. Whilst this is fine for anyone who has read the books, I can imagine that it might take those less familiar with the source (dark) material to become comfortable with the goings on. The other downside of this approach is that some things are painted with necessarily broad strokes and some subtlety is lost along the way. On the flipside again the sheer enthusiasm and energy of the production makes up for that.

The staging is an interesting example of economy. Considering that the settings range from the spires of Oxford to the shores of the Antartic, before veering off into further parallel worlds, the set trades spectacle for flexibility which means that many of the locations are suggested with minimal amounts of props. Some of this is fairly basic, but it's never less than effective which is what's most important. But that's not to say there's no spectacle. The Olivier theatre has a unique rotating stage which incorporates a large cylinder that can rise up to reveal a new set. It's a clever mechanism that's put to good use here, with most of the interior settings taking place on this platform. There are also several other clever tricks used to good effect, such as the tower of Citagazze rising up from the center stage, or the balloon of Lee Scoresby floating gently in the night sky.

The curious thing about the casting is that it brought home just how strong a view I had of these characters. Of them all, Lyra was closest to what I had in mind. She was played by the 20-something Anna Maxwell Martin, who managed to portray a 12 year old with (what I remember to be) remarkable accuracy. Probably the two I had most difficult adjusting too were Timothy Dalton as Lord Asriel and Patricia Hodge as Mrs Coulter. They were fine in their respective roles, but Dalton's Asriel was less imperious and more adventurous than I'd imagined whilst Hodge's Mrs Coulter was more motherly and less malevolent. Not bad casting by any means, just not what I'd envisioned. Of the remaining characters the ones I derived most enjoyment from were the non-human characters, such as the various daemons and the polar bears. If you've seen The Lion King on stage, a lot of the puppetry involved in creating these effects will be familiar to you, but they are used equally well here. That a simple effect involving a man holding a mask can manage to create the illusion that he wears the bulk of a polar bear is testament to the skills of all involved, actors and technicians alike.

Anyway, I've prattled on for long enough. I'm honestly not certain what my expectations were when I entered the theatre, but I don't think I expected the play to measure up to the books. I was wrong. They play is not perfect, but it's easy to forgive it it's flaws and in the end it manages to stand on it's own two feet, aside from it's parent, remarkably well. Of course, I've yet to witness the second half of the production, so I should probably be a little more cautious in my judgements, but I am impressed with what I've seen so far.

Good stuff.