(seen at the afternoon performance on 24th April 2024)
“To act as a machine, unfeelingly.” Sophie Treadwell’s title requires deduction relating it to this tale of a young woman who murders her husband. Fortunately, Richard Jones’s immaculate direction renders the solution crystal clear by the end.
The highly stylised scenes seldom relax except in moments of true passion. Otherwise, the emotional coldness explains how taking life could be a mere process once humanity has been so effectively crushed.
Hyemi Shin’s multi-doored box through which small items are wheeled has also a front wall “scrabble holder” of words to be hoisted aloft, summarising scenes and adding to the reductive nature of the piece.
Adam Silverman uses light to throw deep shadow or dazzle, seldom allowing warmth and never a sense of joy to prevail even in less gloom-filled moments.
Rosie Sheehy as the Young Woman knows she must conform to the pattern of marriage and children against her fragile mental health. Painful moments of monologue and an excruciating post-natal psychiatric scene are handled with moving honesty, her final scene with resigned inevitability.
Husband Tim Frances is unfeeling, like the Swiss watch he craves - relentlessly ticking yet stuck in the same circular motion for life. It is small wonder his wife is distracted by Pierro Niel-Mee’s virile Young Man.
With sound ensemble work in office and courtroom scenes, this 1928 play comes up almost like new. It manages to avoid the modern trap of reducing its arguments to mere “gender politics,” instead proving ahead of its time in exploring the roots of ambition and the importance of self-esteem in determining how it is channelled.
Rewarding our concentration as it travels, without requiring ostentatious dramatic tension, along a pre-destined trajectory, it is a strong revival and outstanding credit to the Theatre Royal Bath who originally presented it.
