Brief Encounter for Years 10 and 12
Year 10 and 12 GCSE and A level students travelled to the New Wolsey Theatre last Friday to watch Emma Rice’s adaptation of Brief Encounter, and Year 10’s Eriko’s shares her thoughts on the performance in her report.
Brief Encounter, report from Year 10’s Eriko
On Friday 28 April we travelled to watch Brief Encounter at the New Wolsey Theatre in Ipswich. I thought Emma Rice’s adaptation was incredibly well told, as the director, Douglas Rintoul, utilised projections, to convey how the lovers, Laura and Alec, felt in each other’s company, as mystical blue waves washed over them.
This really physicalised the nature of the characters’ relationship, how they felt like something they couldn’t control had washed over them, how they almost seemed under a spell. The music was also ingeniously selected by Rice as she chose songs written by Noel Coward, writer of the original screenplay. It perfectly captured the 1940s atmosphere, and I felt completely immersed as an audience member.
I also thought that the music aided the flawless transitions, helping direct the actors seamlessly out from the thin gauze like curtain hanging in the middle of the stage, with complex transitions taking place behind it. There was not a moment on stage where the interest was not commanded by the incredible actors, it was a continuous succession of emotion, colour ,music and astonishing imagery.
