Daniel Deronda

Adapting George Eliot’s epic novel Daniel Deronda (a whopping 800 pages with a plot as complex as 19th century etiquette) for television must be a challenge for any film director. Adapting it for fringe theatre must seem like ‘mission impossible’ – especially since the number of characters is enough to fill a West End musical production. Alas, the impossible has been achieved, with a result that cast and crew can be proud of.

Here then is a fringe production of Daniel Deronda that has been fearlessly adapted by John Cooper. Though the plot had to be rendered more accessible to theatre audiences, the adaptation (two-hours-and-fifteen-minutes stage time) retains the spirit of G. Eliot and is skilfully directed by Harry Meacher As for the characters (thirty-one in this adaptation), they cleverly are doubled and even tripled by a versatile cast of seventeen actors.

On to the plot: the story begins in Leubronn, Germany, in August 1865. The young Daniel Deronda feels strongly attracted to Gwendolen Harleth, a beautiful, spirited but ultimately self-absorbed society beauty with a passion for gambling whom Daniel sees lose money by playing roulette. Meanwhile, Gwendolene’s family loses an entire fortune in the economic downturn of the 1860’s and ask her to return home to England. Gwendoline is forced to trade her looks in the marriage market and she becomes the object of desire for a wealthy but calculating and controlling Englishman, Henleigh Grandcourt. Accepting his proposal, she soon feels trapped in a loveless marriage, and racked with guilt about the suffering her marriage has caused others, she gravitates towards the selfless and high-minded Daniel Deronda, who she uses as a moral compass.

Meanwhile, Deronda - brought up as an Englishmen by his adoptive father, Sir Hugo Mallinger - has become involved in helping a young Jewess and talented opera singer, Mirah Lapidoth, who has come to London to look for her family. This young man, whose own parentage is an enigma, finds himself torn between the competing demands of the two women and finds himself drawn into ever-deeper sympathies with Jewish aspirations and identity, fueled by the consumptive visionary Jew Mordecai.

That is the plot in a nutshell. The story, with a mixture of social satire and moral searching, and its controversial rendering of proto-Zionist ideas, sets it apart from her other celebrated ‘provincial’ novels such as Middlemarch and Silas Marner. Her determination to present Jewish values in a positive light can be linked to her friendship with Emmanuel Deutsch, a Jewish intellectual who, like Mordecai in the play, was inspired by the dream of a Jewish homeland.

With its international setting in Germany, Italy and England, Daniel Deronda boasts a gallery of characters from the English upper classes as well as divers European intellectuals, such as Herr Klesmer - an eccentric German musician, or Hans Meyrick - a high-spirited, somewhat dissolute artist.

Under Harry Meacher’s direction, the whole cast is impressive and believable in their parts. However, it is Sally-Anne Beighton’s outstanding performance as Gwendolen Harleth that truly shines (read Sally-Anne's interview on here). Her sympathetic interpretation of the emotionally volatile heroine is completely believable. Also worthwhile mentioning is Tara Jaffar’s (Mirah Lapidoth) exquisite singing and Owen Lindsay’s (Herr Klesmer) convincing German accent. Lee Ravitz’s accomplished performance as Mordecai gives Daniel Evans (Mordecai in the lavish BBC production) a run for his money. Mark Jackson gives us a coolly elegant Deronda while Janine Ingrid Ulfane’s mesmerizing performance as Daniel’s mother is the highlight of the second act.

Last but not least, an extra round of applause for Ella Bellew’s costume design and Bryan Hand’s simple yet effective set design.