Breakfast with Emma follows the final repast between adulterous Emma Bovary and her good but clod-hopping husband, country doctor Charles. She reveals her several infidelities and the huge debts she has incurred to pamper her lovers, and live her dream of becoming a great lady. The play is writer Fay Weldon's take on the novel Madame Bovary (1856) by Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880).

Director Helen Tennison's production highlights all the claustrophobia and unhappiness of pretty Madame Bovary. Debtors, dancers and lovers pop out of cupboards and sideboards; ladders crash to the ground; tables become upturned. Her husband, driven to despair, ends up squatting on a ledge chewing his breakfast. Taut choreography closes in upon Emma's oversized skirts. Through a complete fusion of actors and set (designed by James Perkins, built by Julian Darkr), the cast manage to turn a humble country kitchen into ballrooms, opera houses, cathedrals and agricultural fairs in an instant. The transformations grow ever darker through reeling music (by Ben Davies and William D Drake). Simple, potent lighting design (by Sally Ferguson) casts looming shadows and distorts the performers' features with angular edges and hollows.

Fliss Walton as Emma delivers a searing performance. She starts by nervously fidgeting with the jam, and ends whirling around the parlour - raging, petulant and helpless. She pulls sympathy from one extreme to the other by simultaneously presenting both a silly and extravagant creature and the frustration of a woman married to a man who attributes all her behaviour to bodily imbalances. 'There is such a thing as a soul, and it can wither and die - and what use is the body then?' she says. Fliss Walton's performance manages to combine ridiculousness with pathos. Her quick-firing, breathy dialogue adds a sharp poignancy to Emma's fervent search for love, passion and adventure - amongst men who invariably prove themselves nothing but earth. When Charles asks why she did it even though she had everything, she replies simply 'No Charles. I had you.'

James Burton as Charles provides the perfect foil. The contented family man who informs his wife tenderly that she is not wicked and incorrigible as she claims but 'merely silly', unravels in agonising jolts until he is happy for her to die. Moments when Rodolphe, Emma's jaunty beau, lies on the kitchen table between them and takes the bread from Charles's mouth, or pulls a silver tobacco tin from his pocket, are met with the humiliated chuckle of a man not used to pain. When Rodolphe describes Bovary's failed experiment on a stable boy, James Burton manages to weep, choke and laugh all at once.

Tamsin Clarke, Christopher Tester, Jason Eddy take on all other roles, each with highlights. Notably, and with startling effect, Tamsin Clarke presents a blissful-looking statue of the Virgin. Their use of physicality and space produces cleverly-crafted scenes. Tamsin Clarke, dressed as Charles's mother, follows Emma about, pinching out the candles she has just lit - which she then echoes in her role as the maid. Christopher Tester reveals a sharp comic timing as a cathedral guide. But they both find some difficulty in embodying the older characters. Jason Eddy, cast as all Emma's lovers, while suitably dashing, is perhaps a little too crotch-orientated to be entirely believable.

Cast Credits: (alpha order): James Burton - Charles Bovary. Tamsin Clarke - Felicite / Charles's Mother. Jason Eddy - Leon / Rodolphe / Viscount. Christopher Tester - Lestiboudois / L'Heureux / Homais/ Adjudicator. Fliss Walton - Berthe / Emma Bovary.

Company Credits: Writer (of play) - Fay Weldon (b 1931). Writer (of novel Madame Bovary, 1856) - Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880). Director - Helen Tennison. Designer – James Perkins. Music - Ben Davies and William D Drake. Lighting Designer - Sally Ferguson. Sound Designer - uncredited. Technical Operator - uncredited. Stage Manager - Scarlet Plouviez-Conmas. Set Builder - Julian Darker. Costumes - James Perkins and Cecilia Darker. Production Photographs - Andy Barker. Programme - Michael Webborn. Madame Bovary's Dress made by - Crystal Birch. Loan of Historical Costumes - Ellen Parry. Producer - uncredited. Company - Rosemary Branch Productions, produced by Rosemary Branch Theatre. Rosemary Branch Theatre: Directors - Cecilia Darker & Cleo Sylvestre.

END

(c) Philippa Tatham 2009

reviewed Wednesday 25 March 09 / Rosemary Branch Theatre, London, UK

Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2012

www.fringereport.com