Atonement: The Play's the Thing
- L.S.
- 3 hours ago
- 2 min read
Press night at the Chichester Festival Theatre is almost always a full house.
For a world premiere, not least a world premiere of an adaptation of a Booker shortlisted-novel with an existing BAFTA-winning screen version, the anticipation levels are understandably high.
And yet, as with any adaptation, there’s a necessity for the play to stand as its own entity, in its own right, as its own thing (to paraphrase William Shakespeare).
On the two-tier set designed by Anthony Ward, a single typewriter sits innocuously enough downstage.
Words have a special place in this production: writ large by way of Andrzej Goulding’s projected video design and often revealing the innermost desires of the characters, but also their fatal flaws.
Some of these saucy and uncensored words will get Robbie Turner (previously Mick Jagger in Redlands) in a lot of trouble with the Tallis family, living comfortably (perhaps too comfortably?) at their expansive Surrey estate one hot, sultry 1930s summer.
The Lizzy and Darcy dynamic between Robbie Turner and Cecilia Tallis softens surprisingly quickly, once Robbie has made his intentions clear. There is a Mitford-esque glamour to Miriam Petche’s performance, and an undeniable star quality that lifts the production tremendously. And yes, the iconic green dress gets a reprisal.
Love is all very well, but you have to be sensible. These are the words penned by Cecilia’s younger sister, Briony, in her play-within-the-play, The Trials of Arabella.
Ian McEwan confesses he had worried that this tragic WW2 love story, originally called An Atonement, would only be of interest to other writers, and there is something undeniably writerly about the framing of the narrative as we look back over the decades through Briony’s perspective, interrogating the reliability of her memory.
In conversation with the stage adaptation’s director, Adam Penford, McEwan also admits that he found the geographical shifts between England and wartime France challenging. On stage, these transitions are beautifully managed by the ensemble, with dynamic montages expressing the anguish of the era, and illustrating how much upheaval the war would have brought to the Tallis family.
This is where the play becomes most poignant, as Robbie and Cee’s barely-blossomed romance is relegated to fleeting Sliding Doors encounters, and where young love should prevail, misunderstanding, mendacity and misfortune take over.
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