Susie Sainsbury Theatre
%20CRAIG%20FULLER-4285.jpg) |
| Images: Craig Fuller |
Hänsel – Anna-Helena Maclachlan
Gretel – Binny Supin Yang
Peter – Conrad Cahatterton
Gertrud – Ella Orehek-Coddington
Witch – Konstantinos Akritides
Sandman – Grace Hope-Gill
Dew Fairy – Caroline Blair
Director – Jack Furness
Designs – Alex Berry
Lighting – Ben Ormerod
Choreography – Rebecca Meltzer
Royal Academy Sinfonia
Working as I do in education, I am probably more accustomed to trigger warnings, above all to what they are not, than many. It really does no harm to signpost what might be ahead to those who are vulnerable so that they can prepare and, in extremis, make alternative arrangements. Warnings are not and never have been a matter of avoiding, let alone prohibiting, presentation and discussion of difficult subjects; rather, they can offer a framework for that very presentation and discussion. In practice, we learn from experience, including from mistakes, and I have never found students difficult or unsupportive in difficult cases; we work together, and that is how it should be. That said, I was a little surprised when checking the Royal Academy of Music’s website for the starting time of Hänsel und Gretel to see a trigger warning: ‘This production contains scenes of a violent nature which some audience members may find upsetting, including the use of stage blood. Therefore, we recommend that audiences are aged 13+’. Not so long into this production, by Jack Furness, I understood why, although the age recommendation and general circumlocution seemed to be missing the point. Yes, there was a bit of stage blood, which might have led the ultra-squeamish (I count myself among them) at times to avert their eyes, but it was surely the sexual nature of the violence that presented the potential problem and might have ‘triggered’ audience members of any age.
%20CRAIG%20FULLER-4225.jpg) |
| Hänsel (Anna-Helena Maclachlan) |
This, then, was a serious Hänsel, such as many of us have always maintained should be the case. Perhaps not entirely coincidentally, the best previous example I had seen of such a production – and still, I think, the best all round – was that of Liam Steel for another of the London conservatoires, the Royal College of Music in 2016. It tackled head on issues of familial child abuse, without abandoning the story ‘itself’; far from it. Furness’s staging was probably more ambitious still, for better and for worse. It opened up a good number of questions, yet, at least (for me) on a first viewing, was sometimes a little confusing in their presentation, making it difficult (again, at least for me) to establish what had been intended.
The setting was that of a fundamentalist (Amish-like) community, in which abuse was clearly rife, tapping into current Handmaid’s Tale and broader US fascist-Protestant preoccupations. Gretel dreamed, it seemed, of escape—and finally achieved it, though at what cost? Disturbingly, her sexual awakening, was not only represented and paralleled in various stage representations – her first period coinciding with the Dream Pantomime and concluding with chastisement from her father; serial sculpting of gashes; the Dew Fairy as alluring flower; the red cellophane membrane of the Witch’s gingerbread house – but also entwined with abuse at the hands of her father. So far, so distressing, her apparent assault being part of the dream, though presumably rooted in reality, but the role of starving children around was more unclear, more sometimes proving less. Learned behaviour was clearly exhibited between Hänsel and Gretel themselves, she first trying on her knowledge with her brother, he traumatised and only later attempting it, now to her horror, for himself. The mother had clearly opted for a policy of least resistance. Quite why, then, one would have a ‘larger than life’ cabaret-Witch en travestie was unclear; it seemed an odd thing for that abused girl to fantasise about and frankly jarred, though nonetheless it retained an imprint.
%20CRAIG%20FULLER-3718.jpg) |
| Witch (Konstantinos Akritides), Gretel (Binny Supin Yang), Hänsel |
Johann Stuckenbruck’s conducting, impressively, seemed very much of a piece with the seriousness of the production. It began very slowly and, especially during the first and second acts, seemed inclined to highlight colder, disturbing aspects of the score, some of which I had never really imagined existed—or to come close to inventing them in tandem with Derek Clark’s orchestral reduction. There were occasions when the small Royal Academy Sinfonia was out of sorts, indeed out of tune, which highlighted the impression, but Stuckenbruck restored order on each occasion, and the greater freedom with which the third act proceeded further signalled a musicodramatic strategy; here, at last, Gretel awakened, was some Schwung. Clark’s reduction bothered me more than these arrangements tend to. There are good, pragmatic reasons for using them, though we need to be a little wary in the broader scheme of things, lest they ‘cost-effectively’ supplant the real thing, which here is truly a thing of wonder, its Wagnerian scale (in one sense) crucial to it. Some instances that sounded straightforwardly odd, yet I was also bothered in a more positive, dramatic way by its coldness: not unlike, then, the rest of the show.
Our Hänsel and Gretel gave multifaceted performances, founded on highly accomplished acting. Binny Supin Yang’s facial expressions as Gretel were key to delineation of this realm of nightmares. Vocally, she came into her own, appropriately enough, in the third act, whilst also offering an animated performance earlier on. Anna-Helena Maclachlan’s Hänsel was properly awkward, all the more so in this setting, benefiting from a beautiful, unforced mezzo and signal attention to words and their meaning. A commanding Father in Conrad Chatterton and an intriguingly withdrawn, albeit finely sung, Mother in Ella Orehek-Coddington vocally completed the family, augmented by an alert team of choral extras. Konstantinos Akritides’s star turn as the Witch was despatched with vigour and verve; whether the concept were misjudged was a question for the production, not the performer. Grace Hope-Hill and Caroline Blair both impressed in their roles too, as Sandman and Dew Fairy. Whatever my reservations, then, this was a Hänsel to provoke insight and disturbance, which is as it should be.
