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<\/a>And now, in 2024, Josh Roche undertakes to stage the epic at London\u2019s Park Theatre. But how? How can such a novel be crammed into the narrow confines of a stage? The director finds a harmonious and elegant solution by splitting the narrative into two plays. You can spend either a whole day or two evenings with the Forsytes\u2014the choice is yours. Rosh explores each generation meticulously, which is why the first play is titled \u201cIrene\u201d and the second \u201cFleur.\u201d<\/p>\n
The staging by Sean McKenna and Lynn Coglan is truly magnificent, not turning the play into a digest nor thoughtlessly cramming it into a Procrustean bed of allocated time, but preserving the atmosphere, spirit, and\u2014crucially\u2014the characters. The characters are so intricately portrayed that one wants to keep watching them. The intimate setting of the small theater turns the audience into participants, albeit silent ones. This strange but clearly directed sense of inclusion in the Forsyte circle makes the experience both sharper and more surreal, at times making the audience not just observers but accomplices\u2014after all, the Forsytes love secrets, practically turning it into the play’s slogan.<\/p>\n
On an almost bare stage \u2014 just chairs and lamps occasionally appearing\u2014walk Galsworthy’s characters. And here lies a unique trick, similar to \u201cAnna Karenina\u201d\u2014everyone knows what happens to the heroine in the end, but the play or film based on Tolstoy\u2019s novel compels the audience to watch for entirely different reasons. Thus, these Forsytes become a kind of revelation to the audience, despite most being well-versed in the plot twists.<\/p>\n Forsytism\u2014the philosophy of ownership against which Galsworthy wrote all his texts\u2014is explored here not so much from a financial well-being perspective as from a human relations standpoint. \u201cThe Owner,\u201d precisely the title of the first novel in the saga, threads through both plays like a red line. The thirst for ownership replaces love, anger eclipses pain, aggression destroys any attempt at understanding.<\/p>\n The costumes are beautifully precise. Irene’s dress, expensive and intricate, rustles with silk and ribbons, shining\u2014it’s a candy wrapper, not a dress. Her friend June’s dress\u2014a check pattern, coffee brown with a strict velvet trim\u2014oh, how simple and everyday she appears, and how precisely Florence Roberts plays these unfair distinctions.<\/p>\n Finally, we get to the actors. The entire troupe’s meticulous work is evident, but there’s another important detail that cannot be overlooked. Throughout all the roles, like tiny sparkling diamonds, are reminders of previous performers. No, I\u2019m not talking about copying or homages\u2014it\u2019s much subtler and more interesting. It\u2019s a rethinking of the experience of previous acting efforts, where they serve as a foundation, a point of reference.<\/p>\n Fione Hampton, playing Irene, faces the toughest challenge. The word \u201cbeautiful\u201d is uttered so often in reference to Galsworthy\u2019s heroine that she must embody not just external beauty, which is evident, but also its reflected qualities\u2014the weight of this beauty, her golden shackles. In modern terms, she plays objectification, and at times, she evokes Greer Garson in the 1949 film adaptation, which aptly was called “That Forsyte Woman.” There’s something of Chekhov’s Elena in her portrayal\u2014particularly evident in the same fatigue, the same heavy habitual misery, the same loneliness. She falls for the young architect Bosinney, her friend’s fianc\u00e9, not because he is extraordinarily handsome, but because he is different. Not a Forsyte. That seems to be enough.<\/p>\n But with her, he is so timid that he can’t believe his luck\u2014as if this radiant woman, descended from some dazzling staircase, could love him, a mere working man. Andy Rush, more reminiscent of a character from a completely different era, book, and universe \u2014 curly-haired, fluffy Snufkin in a crumpled coat and green hat, somewhere lost his harmonica. Such a Bosinney could not but be run over by the cruel world of the Forsytes \u2014 perhaps even literally by a cab wheel emerging from the fog.<\/p>\n Another central character \u2014 Soames Forsyte. An owner, obsessed with passion, towards whom his wife Irene feels a physiological repulsion. Joseph Millson plays Soames\u2014there\u2019s nothing repellent about him as with other performers of this role. But the way he moves\u2014like a wolf, turning his whole body towards Irene, his hands becoming predatory paws, he hunches and tilts his slick, pomaded head in stubborn rage. And with every minute, from a likeable person, he transforms into a monster, assaulting his own wife and never repenting for the rest of his life. It’s interesting that this isn’t Millson\u2019s first encounter with the Forsytes \u2014 he voiced Soames in a long-running radio adaptation.<\/p>\n Lacking decorations, the plays are rich with fascinating mise-en-sc\u00e8nes, led by Fleur Forsyte \u2014 Soames’ daughter (Flora Spencer-Longhurst). In the first play, she moves across the stage unseen\u2014because at that time, she wasn\u2019t even born yet, simply slipping into the past in hopes of unravelling her own pain. The second play is about her, about her passion, about her possessiveness. Fleur, passionately in love with Irene\u2019s son Jon \u2014 her father’s daughter, as if the play says, look how the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree… But again, it\u2019s much more complex and subtle. By the director’s will, John is also played by the same Andy Rush who plays Bosinney, the same otherworldly poet (and indeed, Jon writes poetry).<\/p>\n The family system, its pain, horror, and love\u2014turn children into their own hostages. It\u2019s not the children who answer for the sins of the parents; it\u2019s the parents who ruin the lives of their children. Irene and Som\u0441s transmit mutual hatred to the next generation, denying their children a life. Through deception, manipulations, they drive their children apart\u2014and make them miserable. And although Fleur, consumed by the same uncontrollable passion as her father, seduces her lover almost by force in this interpretation, he will still leave, leave without looking back.<\/p>\n But here is Soames \u2014 and Millton plays Soames in both plays, traveling the path from a young man to an old man with white hair\u2014falls on the red plush carpet and lets out his last breath, his fingers still tightly gripping Fleur\u2019s shoulder\u2014will not let go, will not release, will not allow.<\/p>\n The genetic kinship of the novel, the play, and all the films makes the audience reflect not only on the eternal nature of ownership but on empathy and the impossibility of justifying violence in any form.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>