Brief Encounter expectations

Q: Discuss the ways in which aspects in one production you have seen succeeded or failed to meet your expectations.

After reading the one act play ‘Still Life’ By Noel Coward and seeing the film ‘Brief Encounter’ directed by David Lean, this allowed me to have some expectations of when seeing the west end show directed by Emma rice of the KneeHigh Theatre Company. After seeing the play on the 17th October, 2008, at The Cinema Haymarket, some aspects of the play succeeded and surprised me in meeting my expectations.

One prospect I had considered after watching the film, was that the stage show wasn’t going to be very amusing and only naturalistic. Also I didn’t know how well the theatre company would pull of the fact, that it was set in a train station refreshment room. However, on the one hand one could say that Kneehigh’s adaptation introduces a large comic element that isn’t present in the original film and one act play. For example, humorous touches that include one of the characters Beryl, dashing around the buffet bar on a scooter while another character Stanley enters and exits are on a mini-trampoline. Additionally, there are a lot of songs in which Noel Coward has written that the rest of the characters are involved in apart from Laura and Alec; they are generally involved because most of the limited cast and crew of eight were musically multitalented. Songs such as "Alice Is at It Again", performed as a saucily suggestive balloon dance by the comically eccentric Beryl, were highly amusing musical outbursts in which were used to reflect either what was going on or accentuate the personality of each character.
Nevertheless, breaking the fourth wall by adding these various musical numbers and involving the audience, reminds them that what they are watching isn’t real, it is just a performance and they don’t want the audience to become too emotionally attached. Where as, in the film the audience seem to have no choice but to feel pity on the unfortunate love affair. Furthermore, having these comedy elements the stage show still retains the touching sorrow of Alec and Laura’s love affair, while highlighting their social repression through the free behaviour of the lower class characters surrounding them. Likewise, as shown also in the film and one act play.

Another aspect that I had conjured up was that the stage show would be rather dull and only be set in one scene at all times. However, this was not the case, Emma Rice used the stage with imaginative freedom with the use of extended platforms to show the railway, Stevens flat, the home of Laura and the refreshment room, which were all cleverly arranged allowing to make the performance more visually interesting for audience. In edition, the setting, props and costumes all remained faithful to the film, in that the furniture was vintage keeping the element and era ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

Moreover, after seeing both performances on screen and on stage one could argue that the adaptation of the play by Rice genuinely catches something of the film's choked emotion. For instance, the scene where Laura nearly throws herself under a train is done extraordinarily well with the heroine poised on an overhead gantry while a traverse curtain deftly shows the hurtling train beneath. The impact of a life-size train speeding across the stage which was earlier set off as an appearance of a small toy train in which Alec hopped on the back of in his first departure from Laura. However, the overall uses of switching between live action and film footage/projections defiantly works, as it was unexpected and a nice touch. Additionally, the projections were used effectively and symbolically, an example is when there were projections of waves time to time to represent and express Laura’s passion and need for liberation, which is not done so well within the film because Laura’s thoughts were spoken as though you could read her mind, which I found rather unimaginative and suggests that theatre can capture someone’s emotions in an interesting way in ways film cannot. However, the film and script does endure subtlety and repression. Where as, Rice’s production works as a parody, it fails on a deeper emotional level due to breaking the fourth wall and there is no sense of passion, no sense of struggle between Laura and Alec than what there is within the film or script.

Something that I found quite surprising and shocking after watching the film and then seeing the performance was that Laura’s children were played by puppets. This was interesting suggestion and again reminds the audience that the performance is not meant to be entirely naturalistic. Moreover, having the children as puppets was slightly comical but also rather disturbing.

Overall, I thought the West End Show by Emma Rice was a highly entertaining and inventive adaptation of the one act play and film.