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The Natural Daughter
Graham Cleverly
Let's start with the good news. Director John Brigg has to be admired for the courage to take on such
an awkward and challenging play, and at least he succeeds in avoiding defeat. A number of extra
pieces of business, like those that showed how Eugenia's was being spied upon, helped this, and he
obviously generated considerable enthusiasm for perhaps an unlikely project, judging by the number of
well-known New World faces playing non-speaking parts. But primarily he coaxed some excellent
performances from his cast, in particular from Gavan Guilfoyle as the ominously plotting Secretary. It
may be inadvisable to say so, but a touch of Irish accent helps a lot in projecting menace. His dynamic
range was also impressive, and contrasted well with the more measured evil of Valerie Scott's Cleric,
another splendid performance. Their dialogue, with all the chilling disregard of humane emotions of
both lay and clerical bureaucracy, demonstrated proficiency in the art of speaking verse naturalistically.
For it alone the evening was well spent.
Brian Parker as the Duke also
impressed, once Eugenia's reported
death gave him something to sink
his teeth into, though he was a little
flat in the less emotional earlier
scenes. Something similar
happened with Eugenia herself
(Annik Jordan) who was far more
convincing in the second half,
deploring her fate without falling into
the trap of whining, than she was in
the first. In both cases, much of the
early difficulty seemed to be lack of
familiarity with classical rendering of
verse. It is all important in dramatic
verse to avoid reciting or
declaiming: to avoid giving the
impression that the character
already knows what his next lines
are going to be – which includes
taking lines too fast for intelligibility,
something that Eugenia in particular
was prone to do.
None of the minor characters, all of them
well-drawn, shared this problem. The one I
liked best was Alison Kelly's Abbess,
suitably charitably disposed when Eugenia
first approaches her, and switching
effectively to chilling on being presented with
the all-powerful document. But the others
Eugenia importunes, Andy McKell's
Commandant, Malcolm Turner's Monk,
Chris Albrecht's Advocate all played
satisfying variations on the same tune. Chris
Albrecht's interpretation of the lawyer was
possibly too wimpish, though to be fair I
can't think of any reason why the part should
not be played as a wimp. It does leave one
worried about his chances of anything but a
henpecked life afterwards with Eugenia, no
matter how enthusiastically she closes the
play by pulling him off to the altar.

Fran Potasnik, in the other minor role of the Count, was business-like and efficient in portraying her
business-like and efficient character, but Beverley Atkinson, as Eugenia's governess, the implementer
of the plot against her, was more disappointing. Her character should be the most conflicted in the play,
torn between her physical passion for the evil Secretary and her motherly feeling for her ward, but her
phrasing and dynamics were too flat and unvarying to convey the conflict: she was too resigned to the
fate that awaits Eugenia in exile.
Which leaves the King, played by Christine Mitchell (one of three roles played cross-gender). The
problem here was not with her performance, which was satisfyingly regal (indeed Queen Motherly), but
with the characterisation chosen – presumably – by the director in making her/him visibly much older
than the Duke, his uncle. Much of the potential tension of the play comes from the King and Eugenia
being cousins of the same age group – and therefore potential subjects for matrimony or liaison.
Without that tension the basic flaw in the play – why is Eugenia a political threat? – is exaggerated. A
potential mistress or Queen is always a source of political tension: but what threat is a girl to anyone
when the King looks more like her grandfather?
There were some other directorial unhappinesses. Right at the start the stage was invaded by
characters in modern dress holding what looked like electronic scanners sweeping the arena for no
apparent reason: were they just an exaggerated request to turn off mobile phones? The crowds at the
opening scene milled around a bit too much (they were better in the second half), and there was a very
unexplained laptop computer being distractingly used by the Secretary somewhere in the dark but
visible back of the stage.
But the most distracting visual effect – distracting because it makes one look for meanings that
probably aren't there - was the mishmash of costumes on view, with no regard to consistency of period,
varying from a silent maid (Tadeja Severkar) who could almost have stepped out of a Vermeer, to a
vaguely pantomimish King's topper, a medical man the visual equivalent of Dr Watson, a very tweedy
home-counties Governess, and a Eugenia in the first act dressed like the romantic hero of an Anthony
Hope novel in black breeches and riding boots, complete with frilly shirt. The Secretary was suitably
and villainously black-coated, and the Cleric stiffly formal: both costumes were good but melded not at
all with what anyone else was wearing. Doing it in modern dress would be acceptable: pitching it in
actual period perhaps a little expensive: that imaginary Ruritania in which so many Shakespearean
plays are set would have been fine. Mainly though some consistency would have been welcome. Apart
from anything else it would not have distracted so much from trying to solve the basic riddles of the
play, which this production didn't really manage to do. Nonetheless, it was a courageous attempt, and a
worthwhile challenge. I'm glad I went.
A DVD of The Natural Daughter is now available, price € 10, from John Brigg
(Jbrigg@luxconsult.lu, 44 66 80 or 691 636 631)

Last changed:Jan 13 2009at7:31 PM