We feel as though we have been waiting for ever to see the opening of the new Riverside Studios.
Word reached us in the autumn that the venue had opened for food and drink, so we looked it up to discover that the first theatrical production was to be a stage adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s astonishing movie Persona.
I don’t do heroes much, but I make a few exceptions and Ingmar Bergman is one of those exceptions. I love most of his films. Apart from the occasional lemon, such as All These Women, which I am prepared to accept is a lemon.
Persona is a bit of a “marmite” movie – some people consider it to be a masterpiece, others dislike it intensely. I have always rated it highly as a movie – not his best but a very interesting piece.
The idea of it as a stage piece intrigued me…and Janie, who does not rate the movie as highly as I do.
Below is a preview video for the Riverside production, which explains how they transformed the piece from a film script and other archival material into the performance piece we saw:
I believe we saw a preview, just a few days into the run. Janie and I very much enjoyed the production. We both thought it worked well on the stage – possibly better on stage than it does as a film.
This version is sort-of narrated by an imaginary film professor (portrayed by Paul Schoolman) who finds himself sick with pneumonia in the very hospital in which Bergman wrote Persona. This fictional character metaphorically unspools the film into a stage piece.
One other excellent feature of this production is the musical instrument the Earth Harp, a huge installation which sits in one corner of the stage and splays out from there above the audience, dominating much of the studio space. It was performed by its inventor William Close.
It is hard to get a true sense from the video below of how this instrument sounds and vibrates through your body in a live performance, but you’ll get a nice tune and a bit of an idea:
Anyway, the performances were all very good and we were gripped by the piece.
We sensed that some of the audience were bowled over by it, others less so. I don’t suppose this production will be quite as marmite as the original film, but I expect it will divide audiences and critics.
Reviews, if/when they come, will be findable through this link.
We thought it was an excellent start for the revived venue. Slightly less excellent is the cold feel of the expanded, large space that is the venue as a whole. Early days of course and work in progress, naturally. But having dispensed with the shabby chic look of the old place, the Riverside crowd need to start developing some character to the space.
The large colourful paintings helped a bit, but with price tags in the thousands, it felt like a shout out to wealthy West London media types and a bit off-putting to us shabby chic returnees and/or to locals who might have been hoping for enhanced community space for real people.
But go judge for yourselves if you are able – you can see Persona at The Riverside until 23 February 2020. We recommend it.