Joseph Millson and Andy Rush just about get me through the two languorous parts of The Forsyte Saga at the Park Theatre
“This is where we start the story of me!”
First things first, I’ve never read any of John Galsworthy’s novels or seen any of the televised adaptations thereof. So why see a theatrical version spread over two plays in The Forsyte Saga Parts 1 and 2 at the Park Theatre? Well I’m not really sure. Josh Roche’s production is very well cast – Joseph Millson and Fiona Hampton, Andy Rush and Flora Spencer-Longhurst – but I’m not sure it ever really ignites enough to justify the two-part treatment.
Shaun McKenna and Lin Coghlan’s adaptation is no mean feat, condensing so much material as it does from Galsworthy’s saga about the upper-middle-class Forsyte family over four decades of dealing with their nouveau riche status, tangled personal histories and generational trauma. Such fun. Split into two parts, there’s an attempt to argue that you could see the second (Fleur) without seeing the first (Irene) but let’s not kid ourselves, they’re a pair.
Despite each part being named for a woman, Joseph Millsom’s Soames Forsyte lies at the heart of so much of the tragic weight of the storytelling. Very much a product of the time, he’s highly starched and emotionally unavailable as he considers his wealth to entitle him to anything he wants even if they don’t want him, such as his first wife Irene (Fiona Hampton) subject to an unexpected scene of shocking violence that percolates throughout the whole saga. In a smart move though, Flora Spencer-Longhurst’s Fleur (Soames’ future daughter) acts as narrator to further permit a degree of reflection on a different time.
The second play does become a little more light-hearted due to its 1920s setting and a more playful sense of hopeful romance rather than doomed obsession. The idea though is that history repeats itself, as tangled love triangles emerge in the present as they did in the past, but can be learned from, as Fleur tries to find out what her father did whilst flirting with the son of her father’s first wife (as you do).
Roche’s production does well to delineate the contrasting times of each play and Anna Yates’ design works wonders with its minimalism to cover a wide swathe of locations. But too often the mind wanders as the storytelling gets stuck in certain points – lengthy scenes of divorce negotiations are particularly punishing – which made me feel that this could all have been covered more imagnatively in a single play.
