MANY A movie has come from a memorable stage play but recently, especially with the new staging wizardry available to production companies, the reverse has been happening.
Take ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ a classic movie and a perfect example of a successful transition to the stage. Now it’s the turn of ‘Single White Female’ a broody erotic psychological chiller of a movie that made a generation gasp in 1990.
The film itself was based on a best-selling novel by John Lutz called ‘SWF Seeks Same’. However, whereas both the book and the movie were set in an apartment in New York, Rebecca Reid the stage scriptwriter has moved the setting to a city flat in a seen-better-days block somewhere in England.
Reid has also reimagined the storyline – now the central character Allie is a recently divorced mum with a teenage daughter Bella, who is still at a costly private school. Allie’s strapped for cash – even more so when her ex tells her he is cutting her maintenance payments because his young girlfriend is pregnant. She unwisely as it turns out, takes the advice of her gay friend, business partner and next-door flatmate Graham to advertise for a same-sex lodger. That of course is where psycho Hedy comes into the story.
Picture by Chris Bishop. s
What a difference 30 years makes. Reid makes full use of all the modern nasties like cyber bullying, photo doctoring and identity theft whilst keeping the old-fashioned physical action contained in the flat. The claustrophobic atmosphere is perfectly captured by designer Morgan Large’s panoramic set, we get a bird’s eye view as if watching from a drone hovering outside a large oblong window. This is illuminated in aggressive neon’s on scene shifts by Jason Taylor’s lighting and underpinned by Max Pappenheim’s sinister soundtrack.
Lisa Faulkner really walks and talks the walk as Allie, the concerned and caring but too trusting mother – she makes you want to scream ‘Look Out’ but of course she doesn’t listen! Kym Marsh is equally convincing as Hedy as she slowly endears herself into the lives of Allie and Bella. She feeds us clever clues to her malevolent underbelly and her explosion when finally cornered is truly volcanic.
Andro is charming and chirpy as Graham, Allie’s mother hen business partner and John McGarrity is strangely nice as her alcoholic lothario loser ex-husband Sam.
Picture by Chris Bishop. s
Stand out performance for me though was Amy Snudden as Bella- she was totally in the skin of the angst filled teenager and her riveting back story.
This adaptation may not satisfy the purists – for in fairness there are things a stage play will never do like a film can, like realistic big fight scenes. Screen action is the result of many takes from multiple angles, careful editing and CGI effects – the stage gives up one take from one angle – your seat. That’s the drawback as well as the magic of live theatre.
Director Gordon Greenberg may not deliver up the gory blood fest finish some may be expecting but it’s a fitting enough finale to a slick, enjoyable piece of theatre which is compulsive all the way through to the walkdown.
Single White Female is at the Alexandra Theatre until Sunday, May 10. Click here for times, tickets and more information.
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