Photo – John LeungHailey McQueen's adaptation of C. S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters starts with a podium address by the titular Screwtape at a demonic mess hall where he rails against the lack of meaty souls to feast on.
Rigged out like some underworld university don, this academia nut chastises the rabble for not properly harvesting souls, albeit allowing that most humans do not have the requisite evil for an express ticket to Hell. Oh for a Hitler, he laments.
The rant resembles something more akin a proselytising priest in a pulpit than a man of learning at a lectern.
He has high hopes that he can rally certain Legion to up the ante and lure more souls to damnation. One such agent is Wormwood, Screwtape's nephew, and the correspondence with whom he conducts provides the base narrative of the story.
Alas, Wormwood is a dud at harnessing the husbandry of human souls (stricken by Legion-aires malaise no doubt!)
The bulk of the play is set in Screwtape's digs, a demon don's den, littered with literature, a writing desk, and an easel. It somewhat resembles Faust's salon of learning and is rendered by set and costume designer, Isabella Andronos against a canvas of dark clouds, darkness visible, as Milton might have it.
On discarding his cloak and mortarboard attire, Screwtape is decked out in white suit with black lapels – an inverted Milton reference, perhaps, to every cloud has a silver lining, or maybe symbolic of the imminent soiling of a pure soul, some uniform of Satanic sartorial splendour.
As the tutor of tempters, Yannick Lawry certainly has the mellifluous voice and diction, yet lacks the maleficence and malevolence of a dedicated soul eater. The devil is neither in the detail nor the delivery.
As his henchman, Toadpipe, George Zhao gives more pantomime than pandemonium (more Milton again) and the mugging conjures a whiff of smoked ham rather than fire and brimstone and sulphur.
As a satirical exploration of evil and temptation, the staging has the stodginess of a solemn Sunday school sermon, and a true glimpse of eternal suffering comes from the maladious melody that bridges each infernal scene change.
Clock & Spiel Productions present
The Screwtape Letters
by C.S. Lewis | adapted by Hailey McQueen
Directed by Hailey McQueen
Venue: Reginald Theatre | Seymour Centre, City Rd, Chippendale NSW
Dates: 22 November – 10 Dec 2016
Tickets: $45 – $40
Bookings: 02 9351 7940 | www.seymourcentre.com
Visit: www.screwtapeshow.com.au
