Room, theatre review: Underpowered play doesn't do justice to the book it's based on

Emma Donoghue's cult novel adapted for the stage isn't as successful as its film version, writes Henry Hitchings
Tender: Witney White and Harrison Wilding in Room
Scott Rylander
Henry Hitchings30 November 2017

Emma Donoghue’s cult novel, published in 2010, was inspired by the crimes of Josef Fritzl, though ‘triggered’ might be a more appropriate verb. It’s an unsettling vision of confinement that’s also a life-affirming account of the love between a mother and her child.

It has already been made into a stirring film, with Brie Larson winning an Oscar for her raw and revelatory performance. Now Donoghue has adapted it for the stage.

Five-year-old Jack and his young mother, known simply as Ma, are prisoners in a shed that belongs to sinister Old Nick. In return for essential provisions, Ma accommodates Nick’s desires, while sustaining her chatty, sceptical son with a constant supply of stories.

Eventually they find a way out. When Jack is trapped, his environment looks very strange to us though entirely normal to him. Once he’s free, all that looks normal to us bewilders him completely.

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1/50

As he savours the claustrophobia of Old Nick’s shed and then emerges into a world of tabloid headlines and TV interviews, Jack is energetic, innocent and imaginative. Three boys alternate in the role — last night it was the charming Harrison Wilding — and a second actor, the nimble Fela Lufadeju, adds texture to Jack’s thought processes.

The central relationship has a tender intimacy. Witney White brings a mix of angst, fierce defensiveness and pragmatism to Ma. Cora Bissett’s production is strikingly designed, and along with Kathryn Joseph she contributes some heartfelt songs.

But the musical elements aren’t well integrated, and although the final twenty minutes are genuinely poignant, this is an underpowered and at times torpid show that doesn’t do justice to the inventiveness or the expertly imagined narrowness of the book on which it’s based, despite the involvement of its author.

Until June 3, Theatre Royal Stratford East; stratfordeast.com

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