The Invisible Man

This adaptation of H.G. Wells’ novel defies easy categorisation: part drama, part comedy, part magic show, and part political polemic.  It’s also quite meta in that the people we see all know that they are actors in a play.  These different facets of the work came across well, and while blending them together into a coherent whole is evidently a significant challenge, the director succeeded in delivering a piece that was unsettling, entertaining and thought-provoking in roughly equal measure.

Setting the right tone is vital, and the Players made a really strong start by having the house lights flicker in the manner of a Victorian melodrama; or at least I think that’s what was happening as the effect was clearly intended to confuse, and lead the audience to doubt what it was seeing.  The first scene was similarly atmospheric as the stage was enveloped in mist and smoke, and the sound of a steam engine filled the auditorium.  We were thus well prepared for the mysteries to come when Griffin, the titular invisible man, stepped off the train at Bramblehurst Railway Station.

An invisible man at the centre of a stage play brings some practical problems.  These were relatively easily overcome in the opening scenes as Griffin appeared with his face swathed in cloth.  For much of the play, however, he takes advantage of his invisibility, and is figuratively centre stage in several scenes in which he doesn’t actually appear at all.  It’s important to remember that Griffin is a corporeal being, it’s just that we can’t see him, and I did sometimes feel that he was treated more like a spirit than as a physical entity.  His voice, for example, was amplified through the sound system without any perceptible change in source, giving him an ethereal quality; it might have been better, if admittedly technically demanding, to have used some stereo effects to suggest movement across the stage.

There was usually some sense of Griffin actually being amongst the other characters, and the set pieces (such as the spinning signpost, the self-pulling beer pumps and the rocking chair) were cleverly realised.  The other members of the company generally reacted well to Griffin’s suspected presence, albeit by looking round the stage rather than towards wherever their senses told them he was; and the physical interactions with Griffin, such as induced trips and falls, were convincingly staged.

The Sinodun Players have a strong reputation for complex and detailed sets, but this design embraced a “black box” approach, sensibly leaving much more to the audience’s imagination.  The few trucks, such as the Vicar’s gate or the Inn’s bar, were characteristically well constructed and painted.  The costumes established the piece in the late Victorian era, and the peculiar difficulties of costuming an invisible man were persuasively solved with the help of bandages, goggles and a gas mask.

The director did well to pack so much into this curious amalgam of content and styles.  Serious ideas about political and economic theory, and some slightly questionable science relating to visibility, were given added relevance by a few more contemporary references (“I blame the government”, “There should be a public inquiry”) and interspersed with some occasionally risqué comic dialogue (“Would you like to hold my truncheon?”).  It shouldn’t really have worked at all, but somehow it did thanks to some skilful and engaging performances, and a vaguely unsettling atmosphere which continually promised something magical, curious or unexpected.  This was a fascinating piece of theatre.

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