Wedekinds play was ground breaking when he wrote it in 1890. So controversial proved its truthful depiction of the damage sexual repression does to adolescents, and so vivid some of its depictions of sexual encounters, that it has been banned, censored and reworked continuously since then. Here it is presented as a re-imagining; its moved from nineteenth century Germany to Britain in 1958. This seems like a good idea at first. Nobody does sexual repression like the Brits, even now, but in 1958 it was, of course, much worse. What doesnt work is that we may be in Britain, but where in Britain? The North? Home Counties? In a City? A small village? Without a set of any kind or a unifying sense of accent or class I was at a loss to work it out. In the establishing scene the male actors sing a rock and roll number, but as the scene emerges they appear to be public school toffs. As the plays tragic events unfold it appears they are also Catholic. So we are in what appears to be a middle-class Catholic England. This is a radically different environment to the one Wedekind was writing about and completely skews the production.The acting is very patchy. Peter Wicks has his moments as Morris, whose fear of sex (and his unexplored homosexuality in particular) drives him to suicide. Hes better as the ghost he reappears as at the end then in the early scenes where he and most of the others do very mannered and generally unconvincing young acting (more of this below). More worrying is the sheer lack of any erotic power in the show, astonishing in a play about sex. Director Eloise West seems to have no idea of pace or pause, and the sex scenes lack tension of any kind. The rape scene is obscured form most of the audience not in the front row, and later on Chris Sumpter and Lewis Davidson looked positively embarrassed at having to kiss each other as Ernest and Michael. The script requires them to kiss twice, the first an awkward peck, the second... well, we got two pecks.Those of you who have read some of my other reviews this year will know Ive been boring you all with my lament that young actors choose the wrong plays to do up here. They are usually plays that require older actors with both the technique and life-experience to deliver on some very meaty writing. If ever there was a play right for younger actors it is this one, yet bizarrely the productions weakness is that the players come across as far too old for the fourteen-year-old, hormone-enraged teens they are supposed to be portraying.
