The tough fact is that each reworking or new adaptation of Frank Wedekind’s provocative Lulu (1894) tends to tell us nothing we didn’t already — unfortunately — know about this grubby play.
This time around, the girl-woman sexual siren gets to strut and slink in a vaguely contemporary setting, singing along on her Walkman to I Want to be Loved by You. Even so, it’s still all going to end in tears, with Lulu crushed by the male-dominated society that previously drooled over her.
Director Anna Ledwich won the annual Gate/Headlong Theatre New Directions award for her vision for this piece, but vision is one thing and sightlines quite another. It’s terribly badly staged, which means anyone sitting beyond the first row of the audience struggles to see the actors below waist height. As for when they sit or lie down, it’s hopeless, a real problem given what Lulu does for a living.
From the little I could see, it’s an efficient enough trot through the degraded life and dispiriting times of a young woman who is, in every sense of the phrase, a man-made creation, defining herself by how much — and by how many — she is desired. Rich husbands, all of whom call her by a different name to suit their fantasies, meet grisly ends. Lulu fellates some asparagus with enthusiasm.
Sinead Matthews, with her breathless girlish voice, makes a spirited stab at this thankless central part, spending the majority of the evening in a state of undress.
If only the essence of the character she plays could be stripped bare so easily we would have a more rewarding time of it, but Lulu remains a frustrating enigma, viewable only through male eyes. Men create her from nothing, and then destroy her again, but it’s incredibly hard to care.
Until July 10. Box office: 020 7229 0706. gatetheatre.co.uk
Lulu
Gate Theatre
Pembridge Road (above the Prince Albert Pub), Notting Hill, W11 3HQ
