India Farnham serves her time at Theatre Royal Bath and reports back on the big-hearted performances and touches of symbolism to be found in this slick adaptation of Stephen King’s classic novella Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. Production images by Jack Merriman.
How would you cope with being wrongfully jailed?
Would you fight for your truth? Plot an escape? Or would you accept your fate, keep your head down, and try to make the prison a better place?
Welcome to the plight of Shawshank Prison’s newest, and supposedly deadly, intake, Andy Dufresne (an enigmatic Joe McFadden), who is serving a double life sentence for the brutal murders of his wife and her lover. Here, in this claustrophobic, semi-corrupt and maximum-security institution, ruled with an iron fist by the fervent Warden Stammas (a stone-cold Bill Ward), everyone thinks they deserve to be free. They just need to prove it…
If this is your first time meeting the notorious Dufresne, fear not; this version of The Shawshank Redemption, adapted for the stage by comedian duo Dave Johns and Andy O’Neill, and now embarking on its third UK tour, packs all the heart of the original story into a satisfying two-hour runtime, totally accessible to the uninitiated.
Gary McCann’s tiered set design allows for burly prison guards wielding shotguns to patrol above the audience. Bursts of action are punctuated with snippets of ‘50s music, forcing King’s narrative to march along to the rigid schedule of prison life. This clever pacing, along with super-tight dialogue (director David Esbjornson isn’t one for breathing time) allows this classic story’s decades-long timespan to glide by.
And if you’re already a fan of The Shawshank Redemption (because let’s be honest, who isn’t?) I’m willing to bet my favourite Rita Hayworth poster that you’re already convinced its 100% impossible to rival the chemistry between the film’s Red and Andy on the stage. After all, an unspoken fondness between two men is, you’d imagine, quite difficult to get across from a distance.
But the brilliant Joe McFadden and Ben Onwukwe, the Red and Andy of the stage, tell a slightly different story through their performances. As Red, Onwukwe is astute with a dash of kooky – the perfect picture of someone who has grown into their eccentricity over many years of incarceration. In contrast, McFadden’s Dufresne is serious and quietly self-assured; he appears, at all times, utterly determined not to lose his identity as a free man to his new one as a prisoner. Their friendship is reinvented as a mutual fascination, an acceptance of each other’s wisdom. I loved them.
And as for the rest of Dufresne’s Redemption journey, Esbjornson is not afraid of a touch of symbolism, of showing Andy’s strength as what it really is: magic. If you know, you know. And if you don’t, you’re one of the lucky ones.
Now, what are you waiting for? Get yourself locked up.
The Shawshank Redemption is showing at Theatre Royal Bath until 7 February.
