As usual I have to try and write about this production without ruining the stories and surprises. A huge rug; a leather armchair; a side table and candle stick holder. Suddenly from the murk a Victorian woman manifests to tell some tales. They are dark...horrific, as was the fashion then. This is a celebration of the female gothic novelists, so guess who doesn't come out of this looking too good chaps? Vanity, hubris, callousness, wrecklessness, weakness, stupidity and all of those other traits we know so well are laid out before us. Anyway, little by little, and courtesy of superb light and sound design everything starts to become a little unhinged. The actress has multiple personalities - she slips between phantasy and reality, innocence and blame, male and female, love and self-loathing, belief and disbelief...and the ostensibly simple staging is cast adrift from a Victorian fireside storytelling session - sunk by heavy, slate-grey sepulchral guilt, dread, seasickness and then drowned in DOOM. When the storyteller is with us, she paints the pictures with her body movements...there's nothing there; between beliefs; but in that void she is there, and drags the scenes with her as she dances through the horror (the laboratory scene, in particular, was incredible). Just stepping off the rug becomes significant...
I've been hearing good things about Rebecca Vaughan for a year or two now, and it's all true - don't miss her.
Forthcoming dates are here, but Aldershot - their productions have been rolling through the West End Centre for years now. Just sayin'
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