08 June 2017
Common
The National Theatre
reviewed by Adam McCormack
Common, a new play directed by Jeremy Herrin, opens with a scene reminiscent of The Wicker Man. It is mid-summer 1809 and the local peasants, dressed in wicker masks, light a bonfire and sacrifice a pig. This pagan ritual, however, comes at a time of great change for the locals, for the land that they live off is about to be taken from them.
The Enclosure Acts were a series of Acts of Parliament, consolidated in 1801, involving the enclosure of open fields to create legal property over land previously regarded as common. This was land previously cultivated by peasants and the change was seminal in its effect on English History. The process allowed more efficient farming techniques, which enhanced productivity and helped to feed the growing population which served the industrial revolution. However, it also helped to change the relationship between those living off the land and those who came to manage it. A new subservience was developing, which was not only economic, given the compulsion of farm workers to attend a Christian church. These are the changes that lie at the heart of Common.
Writer D C Moore makes this a revenge play, by telling the story of Mary (Anne-Marie Duff) who is returning to the village of her birth (funded by her earnings as a whore) to confront those that gave her up for dead in an accident some years earlier. In Moll Flanders-like asides to the audience she tells us to believe nothing that she says in her quest. The environment she finds is one where the village has taken great exception to the actions of the weak local Lord (Tim McMullen) who is prosecuting the new act, and has deposited the sacrificed pig in his manor.
All of this sounds a compelling backdrop for a great play. However, the development of the plot from this point on has serious shortcomings. The play does have humour, but is so violent and macabre that its bawdy comedy sits somewhat uncomfortably. There are also perhaps a few too many sub-plots regarding Mary’s family and the Lord’s absent wife, but it is really the confused nature of the narrative that leaves the play promising much that in the end is not quite delivered. We are never quite sure of the motives of Mary, despite an at times mesmerizing performance by Anne-Marie Duff, and too much effort seems to have been expended in trying to shoe-horn in as many dramatic effects as possible – although this does again allow the National to demonstrate its ability to produce stunning sets (designed here by Richard Hudson), particularly surrounding the internment scenes.
For many the production may be redeemed by the performance of Anne-Marie Duff, with Tim McMullen quite superb as the Lord and Trevor Fox as his suitably profane henchman. Nevertheless, one is left disappointed that a great idea for a play delivers less than the sum of these creditable parts.
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