Kneehigh Production’s Brief Encounter is a play based on a film based on a play. Noël Coward originally wrote Still Life as a tearoom-bound one-act play in the 1930s, with the action extended for the classic 1945 film version, entitled Brief Encounter.
The slapstick elements of Emma Rice’s adaptation hit you like a brick in the early scenes, but once things calm down a bit, the lighter, less complicated love stories of the minor characters provide a welcome contrast to the romantic but unconsummated affair between Laura (Michelle Nightingale) and Alec (Jim Sturgeon). While Coward’s droll songs, imaginative actor-led props and larger-than-life supporting characters are fun distractions, the two central lovers, wisely, play it straight. On the odd occasion, however, the musical/comedy elements create too much noise and threaten to unbalance the subtleties and strength of the main love story.
The most successful aspect of the production is the integration of, and tribute to, classic black-and-white film. It’s most powerful in the play’s opening moments, when Laura is torn between her charmed life with her new lover (an off-stage Alec) and her duty as a mother and wife, which is represented by her husband on a movie screen. When she magically steps through the projection, it marks the death of a relationship before the audience can become acquainted with it, but that doesn’t make the play’s resolution any less abrupt and heartbreaking. While it won’t garner the classic status of the film version, this stage version is a crowd-pleasing, sweet-natured take on a tragic tale of doomed love.
BY CHRIS GIRDLER
