Through A Glass Darkly
‘The pairings of small fish in the teeming aquarium of the metropolis,’ observes the unctuous Mr Eccles as he lustfully eyes his prey – barmaid Ella of the Midnight Bell, in Southwark Playhouse’s gripping new adaptation of author and playwright Patrick Hamilton’s 1935 trilogy ‘20000 Streets Under The Sky’, writes Ed Gray.
Hamilton’s inter-war trilogy ‘The Midnight Bell’, ‘The Siege Of Pleasure’ and ‘The Plains Of Cement’, dissected the loves, lusts and obsessions of six central characters, as their lives intertwined and self-destructed or left them alienated and alone in the city.
If this sounds like it might make for a maudlin night out, then think again. Transplanted into the round at Southwark Playhouse, this production retains Hamilton’s ear for dialogue and wordplay, and his eye for the machinations and mannerisms of pub-goers that he magnified through his raised glass.
It’s safe to say, Hamilton knew his way around a pub, serving time on both sides of the bar, to the extent that he fell victim to his chosen poison and died from his alcoholism. Despite this, he had huge success as the writer of the plays Gaslight and Rope when both were made into films by the great Alfred Hitchcock.
Director Matthew Iliffe’s starkly lit set lays bare the desperation of Hamilton’s characters. Barman Joe, oblivious to lovelorn Ella, falls for prostitute Jenny whose initial attraction to Joe is subsumed by her attraction to the cash stashed towards his dream to become an author. Like his innocent protagonist Joe, Hamilton also had a doomed relationship with a prostitute.
Meanwhile, Ella is suffocating under the creepy attention of Eccles, played with hilarious grotesque pomposity by Michael Maloney, as he seeks to coerce and constrict Ella into sexual submission.
Like a lone drinker observing the denizens of a local pub from a corner table, stretching out time in empty glasses, Hamilton’s trilogy explores these lives from shifting perspectives that reveal multiple truths. A fractured chronology such as this renders such a large body of work easier to adapt. We are soon drawn into Jenny’s alcoholic decline when she falls under the spell of sadistic, self-destructing misogynist George Perry, in a high-octane performance from Alex Bhat, as he crushes fragile Jenny for his pleasure.
Cities are reflections of the desires and dreams of their citizens who oppose and attract each other within. Bob and Jenny mirror each other – her obsessive search for punters in the deluded belief that she can earn her way to freedom reflects his equally deluded pacing of the streets in the conviction that she will free him from loneliness. Ella’s stoic resistance opposes Eccles’ delusional affections.
Hamilton’s female perspectives are well drawn, especially for the time of writing, and the roles of Jenny and Ella are delivered with subtlety by Yanexi Enriquez and Rosalind Lailey. Like Hogarth and Dickens before him, Hamilton’s female character portrayals are generally sympathetic to individual circumstances. These women are powerless, coming up for air from a manosphere full of weak men who, with the exception of Joe, seek to drag them down to the depths.
The true, brutal darkness of his vision of society feels a little underplayed in this production. A missed opportunity, perhaps, given the times we live in. That said, all of the performances in this ensemble cast were compelling and delivered with conviction.
Outside Southwark Playhouse, the plains of cement were flowing with people filled with unknown desires, fears, and dreams. A lone drinker eyed me from the pavement as I descended what seemed like 20,000 leagues into Elephant & Castle underground. The spirit of Patrick Hamilton is alive at Southwark Playhouse. Go and raise a glass with him.
Until 17th October.
Booking and full details: https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/twenty-thousand-streets/?
