Writer: Charles Dickens
Devised by Ben Duke and the Company
Director: Ben Duke
‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times’; even those with no further knowledge of Charles Dickens’ 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities may recognise these words, one of the most famous opening lines in literature. It is therefore clear that this will not be a traditional adaptation, when this line comes not at the beginning, but about two-thirds of the way through theatre company Lost Dog’s absorbing re-imagining of the tale.
Instead, the audience are welcomed by performer Nina-Morgane Madelaine, introducing herself as Lucie Manette, giving a rundown of her complex family tree and playfully suggesting the audience take notes. For in this adaptation, Lucie is making a documentary about her family history and hopes to draw the truth from her parents about their past and about what really happened during a half-remembered trip she took to Paris as a child.
Devised by the excellent five-person company along with Lost Dog Artistic Director, Ben Duke, the piece is an innovative fusion of drama and dance, incorporating different styles of performance and storytelling. Amber Vandenhoeck’s set centres a crumbling house, with some areas exposed to the audience and others deliberately remaining concealed from view. A live video feed is projected onto the roof to capture anything taking place inside and Will Duke’s video design cleverly blends live and recorded footage to both haunting and thrilling effect, such as Hannes Langolf performing alongside himself as Charles Darnay or Temitope Ajose-Cutting setting the property abalze and apparently walking through the flames.
As is often the case with live projections, the audio and video are slightly out of sync during the spoken dialogue scenes. Unfortunately, this is a little offputting and gives these moments a stilted feel, also preventing some of the humour from landing quite as well as it could. It is a shame, as the movement and dance is anything but stilted, with each performer expressing the narrative through dance as if an extension of the speech. As Madame Defarge, Ajose-Cutting is extraordinary as she discovers the truth of what happened to her sister and appears to physically collapse in on herself in shock and grief. John Kendall judders and jerks his way through the time it takes a man to die by hanging, in a sequence that says far more than words ever could.
This is all accompanied by a varied and surprising soundtrack incorporating a mixture of styles from Bach to Nancy Sinatra. Nina-Morgane Madelaine also showed off a beautiful singing voice that it perhaps would have been nice to hear more of.
There are interesting themes touched upon throughout, such as whether one can escape the actions of the past, the reliability of memory and how a story is framed by who gets to tell it. In condensing a lengthy novel into just over 90 minutes, this atmospheric and striking re-imagining of A Tale of Two Cities manages to say a lot in a relatively short period of time, but it is when the company burst into movement that they prove sometimes it is not necessary to say anything at all.
Runs until 16th March 2022 and then touring
The Reviews Hub Score
Atmospheric and absorbing
