Like
Jane Eyre, this is another National
Theatre Live production that I probably wouldn’t have gone out of my way to see
if it hadn’t been freely available (thanks again, National Theatre Live! I
appreciate you so hard right now!) Although this play didn’t enthrall and
enrapture me like that one did, that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy watching it an
awful lot.
Young
Jim Hawkins’s work-a-day life at her grandmother’s tavern changes to one of
adventure after a wayward pirate dies at the tavern, leaving behind a bonafide
treasure map. The local squire and doctor team up to seek the treasure, and Jim
is brought along as the cabin girl. But as excited as she is to hit the open
sea, Jim can’t shake the late pirate’s warning about a one-legged man,
especially once they’re at sea and she meets the cook the squire hired: Long
John Silver.
As
I’m sure you noticed in the summary, one of the most notable things about this
adaptation of the classic story is that, here, Jim is a girl – a rather
androgynous one who wears her father’s old trousers, but most definitely a
girl, not just an adult woman playing a boy. It’s a bold choice that at the
time no doubt engendered the scorn of trolls who never heretofore cared about Treasure Island, but it’s nice. As is
repeated several times throughout the show, “Girls need adventure too,” but for
the most part, Jim’s gender just is,
and we get on with the adventure without a lot of commentary. (Note: several of
the ship’s crew/pirates are also female, and Dr. Livesey is played by a woman.
In the latter case, she appears to be playing the doctor as a man, although nothing
is really done to disguise her appearance.)
Also
noteworthy is the set, which is impressive and wonderfully-designed. This is a
pull-out-the-stops production with giant moving parts, and the play does a
great job making you feel like the stage has become a ship. The island is also
really well-rendered, and I love the lighting effects to make the night sky.
Other
than the gender-swapping, a lot of this is fairly standard. There are all the
hallmarks you remember: the black spot, “15 men on a dead men’s chest,” talking
parrots, and so on (the latter appearing to be a puppet here.) It’s not
especially remarkable, but it’s a lot of fun. It definitely has the feel of
good family fare, and it offers up action and thrills without anything too
traumatizing for the kids. And in amongst the swashbuckling is a decent little
coming-of-age story for Jim as she satisfies her longing for excitement while
also understanding the high stakes that adventuring can have.
The
cast all acquits themselves well. As Jim, Patsy Ferran is plucky and clever,
open to all that her adventure on the high seas has to offer her. Joshua James
is also very good as Ben Gunn, and Aidan Kelly does a fine job early on in his
brief role as Billy Bones. But for me, the biggest surprise was Long John
Silver, played by none other than Who
alum Arthur Darvill a.k.a. Rory Williams! I was not expecting that at all. I really enjoyed it, though –
obviously, Silver is a very different role to Rory, but Darvill’s performance
is also a different type of Silver than we usually see in adaptations of Treasure Island, and the show frames
Jim’s relationship with him in an interesting way.
However,
much as I enjoyed Darvill here, it needs to be pointed out that he’s an
ablebodied man playing an amputee. Mercifully, he only has a fake peg leg in
one scene, getting a fancy prosthetic after that that’s basically just a
full-length leather brace strapped over Darvill’s real leg, so we’re spared him
hopping around the stage for the length of the play. But this is yet another
instance of an ablebodied actor playing a disabled character, a practice that’s
still so aggravatingly common that it scarcely seems to register in the public
consciousness.
Warnings
Violence,
scary moments for kids, drinking/smoking, general scalawag behavior, and some
thematic elements.
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