The Collector at The Vaults.
If there’s one thing we can’t escape right now, it’s the theme of entrapped young women. First there was that “unbreakable” Kimmy Schmidt – made so endearingly kooky by her fifteen years in a cult. Then, the BBC made Thirteen its lucky number, with a Stockholm syndrome-fuelled drama that is still hoarding the ratings on both sides of the Atlantic. Women may be liberated, but we sure do love a tale of them being locked up – and this adaptation of John Fowles’ debut novel bolts into the theme quite nicely.
Sadly, though, the best part of Fowles’ psychological punch has managed to escape, as Mark Healy’s adaptation for the stage is over-zealous with the textual thinning shears, then heavy-handed and repetitive with the details it choses to preserve. Game of Thrones’s Daniel Portman gives a nervous, childish energy to the character of Frederick -“The Collector”- Clegg, his monologues charged by big, earnest eyes and eagerly expressive eyes. “It was going to take time and effort on both of our parts”, he muses, as he approaches the relationship that will grow after he kidnaps Miranda. There’s a boyish vitality to how he darts across the stage, pulling up details to bring to his “side of the story” – and it doesn’t take much imagination to see him equipped with butterfly net, drawing in the specimens that sit alongside Miranda in his collection.
But all being said, Healy’s adaptation doesn’t quite evoke the intensity of an obsessed man who takes his love too far, and nor does it conjure a psychopath fully in command of his malevolent actions. The first-person account that made up half of Fowles’s novel is translated into a couple of monologues that put plot development before character development. If, as Frederick asserts, there are two sides to every story, this adaptation is the point where the edges meet – where psychological horror is blurred by point-scoring allusions to slut-shaming, sexual double-standards and the charged relationship between artist and muse.
Recognisable from her role as Naomi Campbell, the platinum blond chrysalis in Channel 4’s coming of age drama, Skins, Lily Loveless brings a dynamism to her pinned-down role of Miranda. There’s a biting flair to her performance, that constantly threatens to destabilise the power relationship between our two characters. And, while a smile never crosses her lips, she sure is funny. “I’m very flattered”, she remarks after being singled out as the source of Frederick’s affections, “but maybe we could get to know each other somewhere else”. Loveless brings class and clout to this adaptation, criticising Frederick’s decor before cynically aligning his need to classify, collect and leave to gather dust with the habits of the art world that she has been forced to abandon. Later, she enters into a fantasy of civilised manners and public grace as Frederick leads her from her cellar to the drawing room to share a meal. As Frederick’s raw obsession battles with Miranda’s sharp discipline, you could be forgiven for remembering this production as “The Collected”.
In updating this 1963 work to a contemporary setting, celebrated off-West End Designer Max Dorey uncovers a less fruitful dispute. Vintage furniture is dressed with Costco’s finest: multipacks of Cushelle and Diet Coke join rows of bleach bottles and toothbrushes. This uncomfortable marriage of old and new looks less like the secluded treasure-chest of a lottery winner, and more like the interior of your average £600pm furnished London apartment – as old furniture clashes with a contemporary life. The narrative also comes across some hurdles as it rushes to stay both true to the source text, and up to date. Frederick refuses to share dirty jokes “because they’re for men”, and Miranda’s virginity – while not impossible – seems at odds with the fiction of her modern, fashionable, art-world lifestyle. In renaming the Ferdinand of the text as Frederick, Healy also loses the allusions to The Tempest – a small loss on the surface, but incompatible with Frederick’s romanticised vision of being found united in death, just like “Romeo and Juliet”. Now I’m all for the concept of freedom, but maybe some things are best preserved…
The Collector is on until 28th August 2016. Click here for more information.