A lyrical and moving portrait of C.S. Lewis’s late-life romance, Redtwist Theatre’s production of “Shadowlands” depicts the process by which the repressed, deeply religious scholar learns to love. As Lewis (brilliantly played by Brian Parry) explains in the opening monologue, the fleeting experiences of ordinary life are not real. Earthly love and suffering, he believes, are mere shadows, dim and imperfect precursors of a bright eternal world to come.
The monologue recurs throughout the play, each time with changed emotional import. Love and suffering, the play’s twin themes, disrupt Lewis’s contemplative life, arriving unbidden in the form of brash American poet, Joy Gresham (Jacqueline Grandt). After exchanging letters, the two meet when Gresham comes to England with her son, Douglas (Charlie Bazzell), a dreamy boy who adores Lewis's Narnia books. Their friendship turns to love, and Lewis is forced to expand his understanding of the value of ordinary life. When Joy becomes gravely ill, he comes to realize that suffering is a necessary component of real love.
Redtwist Theatre gracefully interprets William Nicholson’s moving script. The one false note came as a surprise: The several British accents on display were light, suggestive, and created more by intonation than pronunciation; they may not convince a purist, but they worked for me. It came as a surprise, then, that Grandt’s Joy Gresham spoke with a broad American accent. Because of her dropped G’s and flat-as-Kansas A’s she sounded, at times, a little dumb. That's what Lewis’ fellow Oxford dons think of her at first, but the same effect could be achieved with more subtlety. As it is, the enormous intelligence of her lines comes across as accidental, merely precocious.
But under Steve Scott’s adept direction, the cast handles this extremely wordy play with charm and grace, from academics’ banter over claret to lovers’ spirited debates. Indeed, it is a rare treat to see actors engage intellectually, as well as emotionally, with difficult material; this performance of “Shadowlands” demonstrates that the theater can engage the mind as well as the heart.
Reviewed by Centerstage!
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