Review: THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY, UK Tour
Mark Senior
The Talented Mr Ripley is a widely celebrated, seductive crime adventure that cemented Patricia Highsmith’s status as a the incontestable queen of thrillers. Director Mark Leipacher’s new stage adaptation of this story treads in the footsteps of a recent artful Netflix adaptation starring Andrew Scott, as well as a 1999 film showered with Academy Award nominations.
This latest production, however, isn’t convincing anyone. Stumbling into the first leg of its national tour in Brighton, The Talented Mr Ripley is lumpy, uncertain and unevenly paced. There are flashes of inventiveness in this play – Truman Show-like cutaways and an ensemble mob of creeping mackintoshed noir figures – but these were employed altogether too inconsistently throughout the production, feeling clunky and laboured.
The character development and exposition is rushed in the first act, leading to a second act that drags. Ed McVey’s Tom Ripley is nervous and simpering – capturing the feverish anxiety of the conman in way over his head. Unfortunately he lacks that crucial quality of anonymity, an ability to dissolve and blend into his surroundings with chilling ease.
Whereas the Tom Ripley of Highsmith’s novel is ambiguously queer-coded, this production leans into the homoerotic subtext in Tom’s obsession with the swaggering, velvet-voiced Dickie Greenleaf. The exploration of sexuality and obsession is a tantalizing thread to tug at, but unfortunately this reading lacks nuance and depth and ends up suggesting an uncomfortable conclusion that “queer = psychopath”.
Holly Pigott’s stage design centres around a raised platform with a sunken trap in the middle into and from which characters would disappear and appear. This was effective in evoking the bodies of water that haunt the text, but otherwise only served as a bit of an obstacle, with cast stretching and straining to step up onto the platform. From the perspective of the stalls, this piece of set was obstructive and frustratingly cut off a lot of the performers’ bodies. Aside from this centrepiece, other locations were suggested by flimsy trucks that repeatedly collided with lighting bars as they were trundled across stage by the ensemble.
It’s still early days for this tour and there are many areas that could shine with a bit of polish. With a little bit of work, later down the line this could be a very entertaining night out.
** Two Stars
Reviewed by Livvy Perrett
For more information, click here