The Wasp Factory

Cumbernauld Theatre
in association with Tron Theatre


The Wasp Factory
Watching a stage production of The Wasp Factory is necessarily a very different experience to reading the novel.

"Musical
interludes
and bursts of
nudity prove
distracting"

Seeing rather than imagining fundamentally changes how the story unfolds, and Ed Robson’s production of Malcolm Sutherland’s adaptation doesn’t quite know how to handle the twist in this tale, or keep the audience gripped and emotionally invested until it is revealed.
To be fair, creating sympathy for a lead character who’s a serial killer isn’t easy, particularly when the disturbed individual in question doesn’t quite seem to know who he is.
On one hand, 16-year-old Frank is rigidly set in his very strange ways – isolated on an unnamed Scottish island, his life is ruled by bizarre rituals of his own establishment, and he considers his personality to be dictated by past misdeeds that may be imagined.
On the other hand, as portrayed by Nicola Jo Cully, Frank is a confused young man who, in the absence of anything resembling a positive role model, is struggling to become comfortable in his own skin and with the sound of his voice. His behaviour is convincingly child-like – noisy, repetitive, unsophisticated – and there’s little light and shade until the play’s closing moments.
Robson is both director and designer here, and he has a tendency to allow visual spectacle to take priority over exploration of characters and themes. Banks’s macabre tale is fantastical and allegorical, so a naturalistic telling wouldn’t work, but musical interludes and bursts of nudity serve to distract from the brain-bending questions being posed about religion, identity and madness.

Shona Craven

Until April 26 2008 at Tron Theatre, Glasgow, April 29-30 2008 at macrobert, Stirling, May 3 2008 at An Lanntair, Stornoway, May 15 2008 at Regal Community Theatre, May 16 2008 at Ryan Centre, Stranraer, May 17 2008 at Palace Theatre, Kilmarnock, May 19-21 2008 at Cumbernauld Theatre, May 22-24 2008 at Dundee Rep Theatre, May 27 2008 at Adam Smith Theatre, Kirkcaldy, May 28-29 2008 at Eden Court, Inverness,May 30-31 2008 at Byre Theatre, St Andrews, June 3 2008 at Falkirk Town Hall, June 4-7 2008 at Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, June 12-14 2008 at Lemon Tree, Aberdeen.

www.waspfactorytour.co.uk

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What the papers said:

The Guardian:
*** "Matches the imagination of the novel, but misses the sense of revelation and cataclysm in its closing moments"

The Herald:
**** "(The) cast of three go hell for leather via a non-stop barrage of physical tics framing an increasingly troubling narrative."

The Scotsman:
*** "The problem with Ed Robson's vivid new production is that its often slightly gorgeous visual imagery ... simply doesn't reflect either the unmagical bleakness of the story."

The Stage:
"Ed Robson’s direction struggles with the heavy script, injecting moments of comedy ... into a retelling rather than a staging of the novel."

Blog verdicts:

www.viewfromthestalls.co.uk:
"Three exceptional performances ... for a production based on a novel the 'feel' of it was actually very cinematic"

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