Theatre
The Rivals
Citizens Theatre, Glasgow
Neil Cooper
four stars
IF EVER there was a play more perfectly suited to accommodate the Citizens Theatre's artistic director Dominic Hill's stylistic penchant for turning a play visibly inside out, so it appears to take place backstage, Richard Brinsley Sheridan's eighteenth century comedy of manners is hard to beat. In a work that puts social pretence at its heart, it seems fitting that we see the cast put on their wigs and elaborately powdered face masks even as they set the scene for Sheridan's similarly multi-layered romp around the houses of Bath en route to true love. And if the assorted picture frames that fly in and out with assorted painted backdrops are as artificial as the mirrors are empty of glass on designer Tom Rogers' set, the point about how looks can be deceptive is made even clearer.
The person most keen on keeping up appearances is Mrs Malaprop, played here by Julie Legrand as a tragicomic grand dame intent on bringing the most well-heeled of gentlemen callers to her niece Lydia Languish's door. Lucy Briggs-Owen doesn't so much play Lydia as unleashes her as a trash fiction-addicted rich girl straight out of Made in Chelsea, whose every OTT exclamation is punctuated by a question mark. As various comic grotesques attempt to woo her, Lydia's sentimental fondness for the common people sees her fall for a poor soldier boy who turns out to be Rhys Rusbatch's far more well-heeled Captain Jack Absolute.
Jessica Hardwick's Julia may be prim by comparison, but she too is deceived in love by Nicholas Bishop's paranoid Faulkland in a play where image is everything. Fun is had with such a superficial notion throughout this co-production between the Citz, Bristol Old Vic and Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse. The second act's wordless opening even makes taking an anachronistic Polaroid look like the province of dirty old men who Mrs Malaprop so mistakenly and magnificently immortalises as “Bavarians.” In the end, it is the women who win the day, without any fakery required.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here