I went to see The Girl with a Pearl Earring on Tuesday night. My agent often gets free tickets for her clients to various different shows and although I see enough theatre to last me a lifetime what with all the people I know in this play or that, my husband and I decided we'd take the offer up.
I have not read the book or seen the film, and so my comments are about the play as a free-standing entity. And my first is that I thoroughly enjoyed it. As can often happen with plays as opposed to musicals, the action can sometimes slow down so much that I suddenly realise I'm bored. It's as though as an audience member, you are lifted up by a cord as the curtain rises, and dangled before the action as the story unfolds. Sometimes you're pulled up high, bobbing buoyantly above the commotion and cavorting on stage, and sometimes you are let down, lowered carefully into deep dramatic tension. And sometimes you are dropped with a yawn-stifling bump. The magic disappears as you check your watch, wondering whether you'll catch the bus or the tube home.
I'm pleased to say no such distractions took hold on Tuesday night at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. I found myself fully engaged at all times. Though now that I think about it, the story-line was such that it could have dragged a bit: there was nothing incredibly gripping or original about the plot, and the raciest it got was when the housemaid Greet took off her head-dress, revealed her hair, and dared to part her lips slightly in a pose for her painter-cum-master (Vermeer). I jest: I do possess enough common sense to understand the differences between then and today, but even if I didn't, the skill of the actors enabled us to sense that such misdemeanours were, in fact, scandalous in the 17th century. The tensions that they created on stage, flying in all different directions, were palpable: the old maid jealous of the new; the grandmother and Vermeer differing over business strategies; the daughter vying for the attention of her father who is instead taken with Greet; the baker boy and his unrequited love, and the mother's disappointment with an inattentive husband.
Performances from many were awe-inspiring. Of particular note were Sara Kestelman as Maria Thins, the formidable grandmother who really wanted the best for her family; Niall Buggy as Van Ruijvan whose energy and comic timing were astoundingly good; Maggie Service as Tanneke, the 'old' maid whose ability to mix caustic flippancy with maternal warmth was exemplary. Lastly, Kimberley Nixon's Greet was presented with such firey gracefulness, if such a concept can exist, such originality and surety of delivery that I was mesmerised. Jonathan Bailey as Pieter, the love-sick youth, was disppointingly outshone on stage amid such fine actors, and his monologue sounded like something one of the feebler students at my drama school might have come out with during week one, before anyone had told them about colouring phrases or thinking the thoughts behind the lines. The one actress I am in two minds about is Lesley Vickerage: she played Catharina, Vermeer's wife. She was rather flakey and ungrounded in her performance, and I don't know whether that's her bad acting or her excellent portrayal of a highly-strung, frenzied and depressed woman.
All in all, an evening well-spent.
