What's On, May 2, 1990, by Graham Hassell
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At the close of this Theatre Manoeuvres production a 
principal protagonist moves centre stage with head bowed and 
mutters dejectedly - "I don't understand the world anymore." 
I have to admit it was comforting to know that he, having 
suffered the puzzling proceedings at first hand, was no more 
enlightened than the perplexed, even incredulous audience. 
For against the odds, the Gate has finally come unstuck and 
staged something better confined to the wastepaper bin.

In keeping with current form the theatre has again revived a 
neglected European work. But "revive" doesn't quite cover 
the damage done here. Bodysnatching comes closer. For 
despite the sham reverence paid to Friedrich Hebbel's 1944 
play by a facsimile front cover reproduction of the original 
programme on the new programme, what director Malcolm 
Edwards offers us is so removed from the original as to 
beggar belief.

For at least the first fifteen minutes it's perfectly 
possible to imagine you've come to the wrong production. 
Even the described scene - "A Town of moderate size" clearly 
hedging its bets in terms of where and when, doesn't prepare 
you for the imaginative leap required. But with 1950s 
country and western music filtering through and half the 
dramatis personae decked out in dungarees and check shirts 
you have to conclude this isn't 19th century Germany but 
somewhere East of Eden, confirmed by the romantic lead's 
playing like James Dean.

This wouldn't be wholly bad - there's nothing inherently 
wrong in updating a play - if it weren't for a stilted 
translation full of awkward revelatory passages and tortuous 
confession. Characters don't so much interact as wait for 
their separate turns to speak.

All this renders what is left of a tragedy about a young 
woman being pressurized into marrying by her insufferably 
puritanical joiner father hopelessly plodding and 
implausible. One scene serves to summarize the whole. It has 
a Hicksville lawman enter the joiner's homestead looking for 
the errant son who is accused of theft. At this mother drops 
dead, dad stalks off to see a deaf old woodcutter in the 
mountains and the impregnated daughter's beau ditches her 
for fear of being tainted by criminal associations. Between 
the torrents of hysteria and risible non-sequiturs the 
players tried hard to muster something comprehensible, the 
audience to stifle its laughter. Neither succeeded.



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                     Bentley's Bedlam
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