“The cork has been drawn, so the wine have to be drunk!” The Oyster Problem conjures a imaginative and prescient of a literary gathering the place oysters and champagne are taken with no consideration, and well-known novelists come and go along with informal intimacy. Jermyn Street Theatre is a small theatre with solely 70 seats; you need to cross the stage to achieve the toilet. Here, we’re welcomed carefully into the non-public lifetime of Gustave Flaubert, the French literary realist finest recognized for his novel Madame Bovary, as he hosts illustrious writers and pricey buddies: Émile Zola, Ivan Turgenev, and George Sand. The pleased…
Rating
Excellent
The Oyster Problem is a exceptional pearl of a play; a patchwork of anecdotes and literary concepts that welcomes us into the non-public lifetime of Gustave Flaubert and his literary contemporaries.
“The cork has been drawn, so the wine must be drunk!”
The Oyster Problem conjures a imaginative and prescient of a literary gathering the place oysters and champagne are taken with no consideration, and well-known novelists come and go along with informal intimacy.
Jermyn Street Theatre is a small theatre with solely 70 seats; you need to cross the stage to achieve the toilet. Here, we’re welcomed carefully into the non-public lifetime of Gustave Flaubert, the French literary realist finest recognized for his novel Madame Bovary, as he hosts illustrious writers and pricey buddies: Émile Zola, Ivan Turgenev, and George Sand.
The pleased drunken scene looks like an impressionist portray: the writers are surrounded by vague reflections of themselves, within the blurry mirrors across the stage. They reside a charmed life, with a contact of unreality to it.
But earlier than lengthy, the hideous spectres of debt and ailing well being have reared their heads. The mirrors are folded away, changed by a brilliant window and bookshelves. The oysters are gone. The more and more dishevelled Flaubert, in a match of rage towards his niece’s frugality, exclaims, “Wine and cheese? What are we, bohemians?!”
Bob Barrett performs Flaubert as fast to anger, snappish and unreasonable, however the author’s nice capability for love and for loyalty shines via. He offers full weight to the contradictions in Flaubert’s persona; at instances a cynical misanthrope, however affected by the identical idealistic naivety which dooms his protagonist, Madame Bovary. This is extremely irritating to his family members, as he invents excuses to reject their pragmatic options to his struggles.
The chemistry between the forged is powerful, with nuanced and succesful performances all spherical. It’s great to see a portrayal of the depth and depth of affection which develops amongst buddies, and between family members, given centre-stage.
We see a patchwork of conversations between the assembled novelists, some imagined and others lifted from their writings and letters. They debate questions equivalent to: is an obscenity trial sometimes worthwhile for the author? Why are there so many horrible books written by celebrities, and who buys them? Should a real artist be topic to an editor, or ought to he stand his floor? Should the creator be seen in his work?
The playwright, Orlando Figes, is a historian with a curatorial eye for language. He follows the course of Flaubert’s later years, with out imposing any specific narrative construction or dramatic denouement. The Oyster Problem is primarily composed of anecdotes and concepts, and incorporates too few occasions to justify a runtime of two hours and twenty minutes. It might be closely abridged with out dropping its attraction.
Figes’s script is a charming miscellany, greater than anything. Zola, frantically searching for a chamberpot, ultimately urinates in a glass dish and shamefacedly arms it to the maid. We hear that Balzac supposedly believed abstinence was a path to inventive productiveness. After sleeping with a lady, he allegedly instructed a buddy, “I’ve lost a whole book!” Turgenev studies, deadpan, his foolproof methodology to keep away from nervousness about his personal demise: “When we Russians get caught in a snowstorm, we have a phrase: Don’t think about the cold, or you will die.”
The Oyster Problem is a exceptional pearl of a play. It’s a patchwork of anecdotes and concepts, with few precise occasions. If you’ve gotten learn these writers – otherwise you may wish to – it’s completely value seeing.
Written by: Orlando Figes
Directed by: Philip Wilson
The Oyster Problem performs at Jermyn Street Theatre till 4 March. Further info and bookings may be discovered right here.