Review: My Brilliant Friend at Kingston's Rose Theatre

4 STARS. The Rose Theatre's adaptation of Elena Ferrante's literary masterpiece, My Brilliant Friend, is a bold and adventurous piece of theatre that gathers momentum as it progresses says Amanda Hodges.

It’s a phenomenally ambitious project attempting to distil a beloved series of novels into one cohesive- and digestible- play, albeit one in two parts that can either be seen in tandem or on separate days. Appraising just how well April De Angelis had adapted Elena Ferrante’s celebrated quartet of Neapolitan novels is hard to do without first reading the books so for those like me, who’ve not yet tackled them, the play has to be judged on its theatrical appeal alone.

On the plus side Angelis certainly recreates the vibrant, violent postwar Naples inhabited by the two girls at the heart of its story- Lila and Lenu - with flair and consummate skill. All Naples’ raucous energy, dispiriting poverty and casual brutality emerge with a visceral energy that oozes powerfully from the stage, the cast of just twelve vividly conjuring a whole world. Here gangsters have the neighbourhood in thrall and everywhere there’s the stench of strangled hopes and embittered lives in freefall. Such a small cast taking on so many different parts can be confusing ( and it is) but generally their energy and inventiveness carry them through, all ably directed by Melly Still.

The sixty years spanned by the drama are signalled by an ever-changing and surprisingly buoyant soundtrack; starting with Sinatra and the Beatles and moving through the Carpenters, The Police and even Billy Idol! Original music scored by Jon Nicholls also enhances the feeling of claustrophobic Neapolitan life in a play that focuses on personal relationships but always against the backdrop of constant social and political turmoil. There are so many different subjects jostling for space in Angelis’ adaptation, not least the often repressed position of women in this patriarchal ( and often misogynistic) society, both girls’ mothers being unsatisfactory role models.

Niamh Cusack and Catherine McCormack bring real depth to the leads- McCormack the feisty, super clued-up Lila and Cusack her equally bright but more malleable friend, both girls bound together in a tightly knit yet deeply ambivalent friendship. Each has to portray the girls from early childhood until their late sixties and by and large they do so successfully, bringing pathos and passion to their respective roles.

In the play’s first part the charismatic and unusual Lila takes centre-stage, her outstanding mind surely bound for intellectual glory. But then the pivotal event of the girls youth occurs when Lenu’s parents pay for her continuing education whilst Lila’s refuse and so begins her downward spiral, her razor-sharp perception long doomed to a round of stultifying jobs whilst Lenu embarks on the path to academic distinction. In thrall to her beguiling friend yet also jealous of her talents Lenu effectively ‘steals’ some of Lila’s pithier bon mots and social commentary in order to bolster her own fragile ego and launch her career as a writer.

By the play’s second- and more satisfying part- both girls are in the spotlight, Lila finally finding an outlet for her prodigious gifts and Lenu unsuccessfully juggling motherhood with her literary career as she lurches from one ambivalent relationship to another. By the time a seismic event splinters the girls friendship beyond recognition their bond seems irreparably broken yet we’re left dangling with the faint possibility of future reconciliation. A bold and adventurous, if uneven drama it gathers momentum as it progresses so patience is certainly rewarded.