Brand


By Robert Gore-Langton
Daily Express
June 6, 2003





BRAND Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London SW1, 0870 901 3356, until August 30



RALPH FIENNES is one of the handful of British stage actors to make the current Hollywood A-List.

He can be terrific on screen (as in the recent Red Dragon) or he can be awful (as in Maid in Manhattan) but you can't accuse him of not keeping his end up in the theatre where he trained. Already this year, he has been in a cracking play about Freud. Now there's this -- a symbolic masterpiece by the Norwegian genius Ibsen.

If the words "symbolic masterpiece" don't have you running for cover, you'll find much to chew on in this mighty drama about a ferocious priest, Brand (Fiennes), set in 19th-century Norway. This is a parable about an intensely religious man who will not compromise. Brand marries Agnes (the haunting Claire Price) and has a child but he's such a religious zealot - his great motto is "all or nothing" - he lets his son die of cold rather than leave his parishioners.

Weird though this deeply gloomy play is, the hair-cropped Fiennes - never off stage - rises to its mighty challenge. You can almost see the storm raging inside Brand's head as he castigates himself and his fellow sinners. The most creepy of these is the town's oily mayor, played by Oliver Cotton.

Director Adrian Noble's production, though, is let down by a drab and claustrophobic wooden walled set which lacks the visual thrill of the play's setting amid the fiords and glaciers. Still, the fatal avalanche at the end is worth the wait and there are many moments in this stormy saga of sin and retribution which chill the blood.

There's plenty of tat in the West End right now.

If you want some challenging, epic drama, Brand is the ticket.





 

Please visit the other link pages on this site:
Ralph Fiennes Links Page

 Ralph Fiennes Astrology Page

Back to the Jennifer Lash Links page
 

Back to the Ralph Fiennes - Jennifer Lash Main Page

This page was created with the Stonehenge.ttf font and is best enjoyed if you
have the font yourself.  If you want it please click on the green name Stonehenge.ttf above to download and install it to your PC.
Sorry not available for Mac's.  Thanks.
 

These pages are Copy written by Mary Sibley.  All rights reserved.
Please do not use anything within these pages without permission.
Please send an EMail to Mary Sibley for permission, thanks.