Review by Melissa Blease
Rachel used to be married to Tom. Tom is now married to Anna, and they have a baby daughter. Tom and Anna wish Rachel would just disappear from their lives completely, rather than constantly haranguing Tom about what ‘might have been.’ Rachel, meanwhile, wishes she was anybody except herself.
Sound familiar? Probably. Because even if you’re not one of the 23 million people who have read British writer Paula Hawkins’ edgy psychological 2015 thriller The Girl on the Train, you’ve probably seen Tate Taylor’s 2016 film version starring Emily Blunt, and – rather bizarrely – set in the US rather than London. The stage adaptation premiered in 2018, and brought the super-suspenseful, harrowing saga to sharp, invigorating and satisfactorily gripping life, revitalising Hawkins’ original text for a new generation. Are you ready to ride?
When not harassing the new Mr and Mrs Watson, Rachel drinks to the point of blacking out, usually after (or during) regular jaunts on the commuter train that she used to take to work before she was fired from her job for her drinking habit. The journey ‘happens’ to follow the route past Tom and Anna’s house, formerly Rachel’s home. During the train’s regular halt at a junction, Rachel spots another couple on the balcony of a house just a few doors down from Tom and Anna’s. From Rachel’s skewed perspective, this attractive couple (whom she christens Jason and Jess, but who are actually called Megan and Scott) are the perfect couple, leading a perfect life. But they’re not. In fact, none of the characters in this fraught, taut thriller are; in drama-reality, the unfolding tale is one big, horrible train wreck of emotional and psychologically tortuous melodrama.
Whether stumbling around her filthy bedsit swigging wine from the bottle or variously manipulating, pleading with or tormenting the characters in her immediate orbit, Giovanna Fletcher offers a stark (if a little over-shouty) portrayal of Rachel, a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Zena Carswell is similarly convincing as Tom’s exasperated, confused new wife Anna, and Natalie Dunne is a haunting, vulnerable Megan. Jason Merrells delivers in the role of Tom, who struggles to be both supportive to his troublesome ex-wife and attentive to his new one, while Samuel Collings takes a while to allow Scott to become ‘known’ to us but eventually offers an intense portrait of a deeply troubled violator/victim.
Both therapist Kamal Abdic (Daniel Burke) – a complex, largely enigmatic character – and compassionate investigating police officer D I Gaskill (Paul McEwan) balance, to some degree, the macho malevolence that increasingly dominates proceedings. But overall, none of the male characters that dominate Rachel’s life are the kind of guys a woman would be comfortable suddenly finding herself alone in a train carriage with, late at night.
Meanwhile, superb lighting, sound and video effects keep attention levels up at all times, while Adam Wiltshire’s clever sets flits us seamlessly between Rachel’s shabby, seedy flat, Tomand Anna’s pristine home, Scott and Megan’s arty apartment, a subway crime scene and, of course, a speeding train, all of which give further context to the fast-moving, beautifully-structured narrative.
As the drama speeds along to denouement, layer upon layer upon layer of intrigue and tension by turn obscure and reveal foreboding harbingers of a calamitous climax. Even if you think you know whodunnit (for we are, when all is said and done, on classic murder-mystery territory here, notwithstanding the stylish, contemporary edge), the moment when the culprit responsible for wrecking so many lives is revealed shunts us into the curtain-down buffer at bullet train pace.
The Girl on the Train is at Theatre Royal Bath until 22 February. theatreroyal.org.uk
