The Stage

The Jewish Wife

Published Thursday 29 July 2010 at 17:27 by Natasha Tripney

Matthew Evans is the 2010 recipient of the James Menzies-Kitchin Award, a prize for talented new theatre directors, previous winners of which include Thea Sharrock and Bijan Sheibani.

The prize includes the opportunity to direct a production of a classic text at BAC. Evans’ atmospheric version of Brecht’s brief two-hander begins in the foyer where Kristin Hutchinson sits at a piano and sings to the assembled audience members before leading them upstairs, past cairns of discarded shoes and through a disorientating, smoke-filled chamber to the main performance space, which has been dressed as a pre-war Frankfurt apartment by designer Moi Tran.

Playing the Jewish wife of the title, Hutchinson packs clothes and makes arrangements as she readies herself to leave both her home and her husband. Her performance successfully conveys her anxiety and anger at her situation, her growing understanding that she has little choice but to run and that she may well never be able to return.

Evans’ approach to the text is a considered one and he focuses in particular on the texture and detail of the production, perhaps to the detriment of pacing. Sound plays an important role and a series of crackling voices on the wireless are used to strong effect.