REVIEW: Zoe Cooper's Northanger Abbey at The Orange Tree
By Heather Nicholls 25th Jan 2024
Zoe Cooper's Northanger Abbey, performed at The Orange Tree Theatre, was hilarious, relevant and clever.
The queer retelling of Jane Austen's novel stars Rebecca Banatvala as the inquisitive, naive and imaginative Cath, who, like so many young girls who have grown up reading engrossed in stories of adventure, fancies herself as the heroine of her own coming of age story.
She believes that once she leaves the safety and familiarity of her family home her story will begin and so she travels to Bath to experience the world.
Banatvala is supported by AK Golding, as the daring, nonconformist Izzy who quickly becomes Cath's best friend, and Sam Newton as Hen, Cath's romantic interest.
Golding and Newton cleverly switch roles throughout the performance, taking on all of the remaining roles between them. This, combined with the minimal set and prop which consisted of mainly just a few trunks made the performance extremely effective and clever.
The physicality used by the cast to tell the story was highly entertaining and helped to bring the tale alive.
The way that Banatvala interacted with and built rapport with the audience, with the lights brightening each time she directly told the story us the story directly, helped to entice the audience into the story.
The sudden gothic and scary twist that the 'third act' took, took me by surprise at first but it was a touch of realism to the overactive imagination of Cath – Northanger Abbey was not going to be the amazing story that she had thought up for herself.
The story focuses on the realities of being a woman at that time and how the structure of marriage was so expected, patriarchal and capitalist - Cath had to learn of dangerous men and the realities of romance.
Izzy and Cath's subtle romance, love and fascination with one another was the piece de resistance of this play.
The way that Cath, perhaps a slight unreliable narrator, didn't mention their secret kiss in a darkened doorway but focused instead on the expected route that she had imagined for herself when she went to Bath.
Iz, daring and remarkable from the moment she stepped on stage wasn't afraid for the audience to know – perhaps she is the more reliable of the two.
No spoilers, but the ending was beautiful and really wrapped up the gorgeous retelling.
Northanger Abbey is playing at The Orange Tree Theatre until February 24.
Book your tickets here.
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