Treasure Island (2015)

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.