Emile Zola was widely credited with making a significant contribution to what some called realism (he called it naturalism) in the theatre when he adapted his 1867 novel, Therese Raquin, for the stage. Yet, in Nicholas Wright's adaptation, Zola's 19th century realism comes across as a kind of psychological grand guignol. We find Therese, ineffectually married to Madame Raquin's narcissistic son Camille, lusting passionately after Laurent who has come to paint his friend Camille's portrait. Laurent returns Therese's lust with equal passion and the two plot to get rid of Camille in what is rigged to look like a tragic accident.
The deed done, the passionate pair are "persuaded" by Camille's bereaved mother and by the neighbours to wed (as was their own original plan), but guilt and mutual acrimony have quenched their lust and they are doomed to exist, in Madame Raquin's cold and gloomy apartment in their guilt-ridden and loveless marriage until the bereaved Madame discovers what they did to her son and devises a more terrible punishment for them. This must have been very frank and fearless naturalism when the play was first performed and, indeed, when Eleonora Duse played the title role in Italy in 1878, it was the start of her formidable international reputation (later to be further developed in the dramas of Henrik Ibsen's naturalism).
Michael Caven's direction of his players in the current production at the Gate stays largely within the traditional modes of realism (as does Joe Vanek's appropriately gloomy setting which even provides metaphorical bars in which we can see the misery contained). But Barry McGovern's Grivet, the fastidious neighbour, and Desmond Cave's retired Inspector Michaud, who visit the apartment weekly to play dominoes with Madame Raquin, are very skilful characterisations. Both draw the laughs that are written into their dialogue in Nicholas Wright's version so that some of the horror of the closing scenes turns to bathos. As Therese and Laurent, Donna Dent and Phelim Drew provide all the anguish that is asked of them, and then some, as they tear each other apart, and Susan FitzGerald's Madame Raquin, while starting somewhat mannered, is frighteningly and venomously still in her vengeance. Mark O'Halloran's Camille demonstrates amply why Therese cannot love him and why his mother dotes on him, and Fidelma Keogh brings a pert fresh breath of normality to the moral dankness of Zola's naturalism in her playing of Michaud's young niece Suzanne. On balance, this is a brave and faithful production of a seminal and rarely produced work which should be seen now.
Runs until March 17th. Booking on 018744045.
