Is there a literary achievement greater than George Eliot’s stonking masterpiece? Not according to a Guardian poll, topped by this sprawling, contemplative and profound book about marriage, moral goodness, debt, death, God and everything in between. So how do you adapt its nonpareil greatness for the stage without flattening the moral, philosophical and psychological complexities?
Andrew Davies had a go at it with his watchable enough 1994 television costume drama, retelling Eliot’s story about provincial life, in six parts. A mere six-parts, you might say, for a novel that is about 900 pages. While its timeline only spans three years in the life of a fictional Midlands town, it juggles multiple storylines and perspectives, weaves the local with the big socio-political backdrops of its age and follows the trajectories of characters with such detail that it becomes hard to replicate in another form.
Now the Royal Shakespeare Company has had a go at a stage adaptation, divided into two parts and totalling almost six hours of viewing (including the intervals). Again, you might say, a mere six hours, particularly in relation to the compressions of Part One. Jeremy Herrin’s production at first seems to sacrifice character study and emotional connection for plot and pace, although it hits all the beats of a pleasing costume drama, is easy on the eye, full of incident and with an understated visual beauty that suits the town of Middlemarch perfectly.
Grace Smart’s supple set design contains ecclesiastical touches in the vaulted ceiling and back window, alluding to Eliot’s exploration of divinity. The stage is often lit by candles, perhaps to gesture at Eliot’s famed passage about the candle and pier-glass, which is quoted at the outset of the show. But there is so much incident to get through that you do not get much more than momentary philosophical reflection or inner outpourings before the next flick of the proverbial page.
Like the book, the beginning focuses on the marriage of the young, devout Dorothea (Nia Towle), who sees wedlock as a means of higher learning, but does not quite make you feel enough. Her failed suitor, Sir James Chettam (Gunnar Cauthery), remains featureless, as does her sister, Celia (Lizzie Annis; why is she dressed in the same shockingly unfashionable frock throughout?). Outsider-artist Will Ladislaw (Rory Alexander), meanwhile, is barely there, appearing in brief spotlight as little more than a motif.
Beyond the parish of Lowick, the drama of the Vincy family ticks over: Fred’s (Ebenezer Gyau) feckless ways with money, his tenderness for Mary Garth (also Annis), along with the budding romance between Rosamond (Emma McDonald) and the town’s ambitious new doctor, Tertius Lydgate (Andrew Richardson). It is Dorothea’s scholarly and sour husband, Casaubon (Ian Drysdale), who serves as the highlight in Part One, happy to marry a much younger woman but disdainful in the face of marital intimacy. Eliot’s book has sometimes been seen as a satire of middle England, and Nina Raine’s script leans into humour, tipping into a bumptious broadness, which verges on pantomime entertainment in scenes featuring Peter Featherstone (Peter Forbes) on his deathbed, his hands gripped around his money box.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
