Visual effects not enough

A FAREWELL TO ARMS

(Lowry Quays, to tomorrow)

HEMINGWAY’S first big hit novel, about the Italian campaign of the First World War, isn’t one most people would put in a list of the top 10 books to adapt for the stage.

This adaptation is the first for several decades, and as adapters and producers imitating the dog point out, to do the full story with its many places and people justice would take about four hours, much of which would be narrative.

So the company’s trademark high-tech visuals here both expand the viewer’s point of view and illuminate important parts of the text — not to mention offering translations of the extensive use of Italian dialogue (the drama reflects Hemingway’s experiences on the Italian front and the production is soon to tour to Italy).

The company majors in terrific visual effects and here simple, white-painted walls with windows serve as screens on to which are projected live video of the central characters — American-in-Italy Frederic Henry and his nurse and lover Catherine Barkley — as well as pages from the book, evocative film and simple projections of falling snow and rain, all aided of course by an effective soundtrack.

But not so fascinating is the adaptation. Extensive use of narration by “readers” of the book — cast members not currently involved in the scene — mean long passages of spoken text are lifted pretty much directly from the novel and aren’t exactly good drama, even if the visuals help.

Added to this is a sense of alienation from the text: the central lovers at first speak to each other, for example by talking to camera on opposite sides of the stage, their faces projected on the wall of the set (with a slightly annoying delay between live performance and video image). And while Jude McGowan as Frederic is watchable and direct, Laura Atherton as Catherine has a flat, featureless tone that sounds more like reading than acting. Frederic and Catherine seem a decidedly odd couple.

The second half is also given over far too readily to a looong scene in which Catherine goes into labour and produces a stillborn son prior to her own death. Potentially dramatic, yes, but in reality over-extended and again subject to fairly inane dialogue — partly Hemingway’s fault, partly the lack of believability injected by the lovers.