REVIEW: RIDERS TO THE SEA @ THEATRE ROYAL PLYMOUTH

🎭 Riders to the Sea

📍 The Drum, Theatre Royal Plymouth, Royal Parade, Plymouth, Devon, PL1 2TR

🗓 Friday 7th February 2025

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

POWERFUL AND INTENSE

J M Synge’s powerful tale of unbearable loss is distilled into an enthralling performance by Opera Up Close. Set in poverty stricken, rural Donegal, we see a woman, Maurya, losing the menfolk of her family to the ravages of the sea.  Waiting with her daughters, Nora and Cathleen, she watches them leave one by one and prays for their safe return. Husband, Father-in-law and her beloved sons taken despite her rituals and blessings. Are they all to be lost? When her son Bartley proposes leaving by boat to buy a much needed horse from the Galway Fair, something inside her breaks. 

In partnership with Anton Wocjik, composer Michael Betteridge has co-written a mesmeric prologue for the piece, The Last Bit of the Moon.  Bartley, Neil Balfour, imprisoned by grief and survivors' guilt, tries to find his way forward but is haunted by increasingly hostile Shadows. Unable to see through this chaos he calls to the Moon who offers him an alternative view of his future. Enmeshed in gauzy projections of the sea and words, we hear Bartley’s pain and the Shadows’ taunts, the Moon’s clear light almost in ourselves. The prologue is a multimedia tour de force. The recorded voices of the Shadows and Moon against Bartley’s clear baritone mingled with the watery, projected captions and images is genius.  Tom Lilburn’s gorgeous counter tenor voice as the Moon gave me chills. 

By some wonderful alchemy, Michael Betteridge’s reduction of Vaughan Williams’ original orchestration to voices, three musicians and a soundscape intensifies and enlarges the experience to something that feels personal yet universal. The pared back set not only a vehicle for the musicians and cast to be on a small stage throughout but also suggesting the deprivation and despair of the household. Against the dour light and costumes, the flashes of red representing the males seems shocking. 

Within such an intimate space the pressure on each performer to amaze is heightened but amaze they do. Who needs a full orchestra when a clarinet keens its sadness, an accordion sighs the sea’s swell and an oboe mourns the lost? 

Described by Betteridge as a “sung play” rather than an opera, the character’s movements are ritualistic, even twitchy contrasting with the beautiful richness of their voices. Lauren Young as the tragic Maurya brings throbbing emotion to her character. She switches through angry, heartbroken and manic then to the bitter resignation of “They are all gone now, and there isn’t anything more the sea can do to me” .

Directed by Flora McIntosh, this is a carefully constructed and considered work. Clever concepts such as using artistic projection to caption instead of surtitles, mixing live and recorded sounds allow the performance to encompass the audience. For me there is a slight niggle that at times the captions weren’t legible.  

This is the first in of Opera Up Close’s Reinventions series. In the words of Flora McIntosh, “three one-act ‘classics’ taken through the looking glass and reframed for the modern world." I look forward to seeing the others. 

Rosie Sharman-Ward

All views are my own and I pride myself on being honest, fair and free from influence. Theatre is subjective and it is important to remember that all views expressed are just those of one person.

My ticket for this performance of Riders to the Sea was gifted by Theatre Royal Plymouth who invited me to watch the show on behalf of Pink Prince Theatre in exchange for my honest review. The fact that my ticket was gifted played no part in the content of my review or the star rating given.

CAST LIST:

Neil Balfour as Bartley; Lauren Young as Maurya; Susie Buckle as Nora; Julia Mariko as Cathleen

Tom Lilburn as Moon; The Sunday Boys, Hull Freedom Chorus, Bournemouth Male Voice Choir and singers from Hull and Southampton as The Shadows

Bryony Middleton as Memory/Oboe; Ilona Suoamalainen as Ensemble Lead/Memory/Accordian; Emily Wilson as Memory/Clarinet

RUNNING TIME (approx):

1 hours 5 minutes, with no interval

AGE RECOMMENDATION:

12 +