ED2015 3/5 Reviews ED2015 Theatre Reviews

Heart Of Darkness (Scandal And Gallows Theatre)

By Sarah Murphy | Published on Wednesday 19 August 2015

The outdated often offends (‘offend’ is such a feeble verb, isn’t it?) How might a modern playwright adapt a novel as problematic as Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’, which tails the white coloniser up the Congo River, squeamishly recording the black presences along the way as “shadows” and “savages”? He might interrogate it but, sadly, George Johnston’s adaptation of Marlowe is dog-loyal, adopting a cute hyper-Englishness to excuse that cute, hyper-English racism. A white actor assuming the voice of a Congolese native – practical restrictions of one-man show aside – is parodic. Nevertheless, Guy Clark captained the stage tirelessly, his grieving widow pleasingly evoking 40s movie-star histrionics, and Johnston does deserve praise for brightening Conrad’s barnacley prose.

SpaceTriplex, until 29 Aug.
tw rating 3/5 | [Sarah Murphy]