Maurice
This is the second run Roger Parsley‘s adaptation of EM Forster’s Maurice has had at Above the Stag, and it’s easy to see why. Adam Lilley‘s honest and intricate portrayal of Maurice Hall, a young man sheltered from sexuality by his restrictive feminine upbringing, provides this play with an engrossing emotional core.
Adam Lilley strikes a fine balance between sexual swagger and shamefulness, and the thinly veiled eroticism of his playfights with his Cambridge contemporary and first-love Clive Durham is a careful mix of abundance and restraint. The female characters have a hard time playing second fiddle in this male-centric plotline, but they do so admirably well. Both Maurice’s sister and Durham’s wife Ann are particularly grating – but intentionally so. This stage adaptation of Maurice sensitively and sagaciously realises what was only ever a dimly-lit fantasy for Forster.
– Helena Rampley
The following THREE-STAR review dates from the production’s original run at Above the Stag in March 2010
At the beginning of Maurice
the eponymous lead is given a rather crude yet entertaining biology
lesson. Delivered with enthusiastic aplomb by Mr Ducie, it’s concerned with the
male and female anatomy. However, despite plenty of encouragement throughout
the play it is clear from the outset that Maurice has little interest in women
or their anatomy.
In this lengthy adaptation
of EM Forster’s novel we observe Maurice run the gauntlet as a gay man,
book-ended between a repressive Edwardian dogma and a devout Christian family.
Taking in love, rejection and hypnotism, the journey understandably is not all
sweetness and light.
Adam Lilley gives a
rounded and engaged performance as Maurice Hall and is ably assisted by
newcomer Rob Stott as Clive Durham. In fact the real strength of this
production lays in the various tête à têtes between the lovers, who rejoice and
then later battle with their sexuality “against the rest of the world”. The
contrary worlds of Cambridge, replete with Plato’s Symposium
and then later on, Clive’s family seat in Penge (where he begins to “pass” as
straight), are also neatly realised by director Tim McArthur.
Stevie Raine impresses as the
earthy Alec Scudder and some tidy cameos from Jonathan Hansler (Mr Ducie/Mr
Lasker Jones) and Gil Sutherland (Dr Barry) add weight to the proceedings.
The costumes too are impressive and complement both character and era.
Maurice
is a sound production without ever being spectacular and although McArthur
teases some fine moments from a rather broad and wordy adaptation, the
production does suffer from some confused staging and a tendency to over-egg
the pudding. Particularly confusing is the kiss between Maurice and Clive, as
witnessed by Mrs Hall (Leanne Masterton). It is difficult to ascertain
whether she is meant to have seen them or if she just happens to have walked in on them. Either way
her reaction is incongruous when we consider that fact that she is a Christian Edwardian mother watching
her son kiss a man on the lips. The lighting too threatens to break the
narrative thread and restrict the play to a series of episodic scenes,
bracketed by one too many blackouts.
These concerns aside, the
play remains an engaging portrayal of the complications and emotional turmoil
suffered by gay men in Edwardian society.
– Ed Clark
