Of Human
Bondage, Somerset
Maugham’s massive and moving novel was published one hundred years ago and it
has never been out of print. Soulpepper Theatre Company has scored a first in
dramatizing the novel for the stage in a version by Canadian playwright Vern
Thiessen.
Of Human Bondage is centered on the story of Philip Carey, a
young man with a club foot who tries to become an artist in Paris but realizes
that he has little talent for art and returns to London at the turn of the
twentieth century to study medicine.
He falls
in love and becomes obsessed with Mildred Rogers and much of the story is
concerned with that relationship. She is a waitress in a tea shop and, aside
from her physical attractiveness, is one of the most repellent persons
imaginable. She uses and abuses Phillip and he repeatedly takes her back. She
runs off with one man and returns pregnant. Phillip pays for her confinement
and forgives her. She goes away with Philip’s
friend and he forgives her again.
By that
time, our sympathy for Philip is strained to the breaking point. How stupid is
this man to be risking his career (he can’t pay his medical school fees or his
rent) for this odious creature who offers him absolutely nothing?
The
adaptation and the staging are quite superb. Thiessen has extracted a great
deal of the novel for the stage and this is made possible by the brilliant
staging. The method used is quick and seamless change of scenes and entrances
of characters. The scene changes are accomplished by pushing a couple of pieces
of furniture on or off the stage and characters played by the same actors
appear with extraordinary speed.
The
programme lists eleven actors and nine of them play so many roles that they are
not even listed.
Gregory
Prest plays Philip, a man scarred by his club foot who is decent and sympathetic
except when he goes overboard with his obsession with Mildred. Michelle
Monteith plays the flakey, pretentious and emotionally abusive Mildred. Fine performances.
Dan Chameroy
plays the unsuccessful and addicted poet Cronshaw and like the rest of the cast
handles several other roles.
Notable
performances are turned in by Jeff Lillico as the playboy doctor who becomes addicted
to drugs and wastes his life. Sarah Wilson as Norah provides a contrasting character
to Mildred. She is an attractive and successful writer whom Philip rejects.
Oliver Dennis handles several roles with his usual ability.
The play,
like the novel, has elements of sentimentality and melodrama, but director
Albert Schultz never allows it to get mawkish. Much credit belongs to Set and Lighting
Designer Lorenzo Savoini who makes it possible to put so many people on stage
quickly.
I have a
prejudice against adaptions of novels for the stage and many of them have done
nothing to disturb that attitude. Thiessen’s adaptation did not change my mind
but I was moved and enjoyed the production almost in spite of myself.
_________
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham adapted by Vern
Thiessen opened on April 24 and will run
in repertory until May 17, 2014 at
the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 55 Tank House
Lane, Toronto, Ontario. www.soulpepper.ca 416 866-8666
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