Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Keicha Greenidge, Matt Prendergast, Morgan Bailey, Laura Atherton, Morven Macbeth.
Heart Of Darkness holds a distinction in literature, arguably one that was perhaps unintended by Joseph Conrad as he delved into his own life and created, what would eventually become, one of the most iconic characters to dominate early 20th Century literature and further on, a representation of symbolism in cinema. There are few books that have been as dissected and scrutinised as Heart Of Darkness and there are few that are seen in the right climate that we exist in today that are now considered un-filmable.
The act of ingenious subversion maybe seen as a common practise by many adaptors of the English literature, to take a text and dissect it, to raise salient points and seek answers to the way they may resonate with modern audiences is to be commended. Only the purist or the dogged wants to see a word for word interpretation of an author’s work, there must be room in modern society for all voices, dissenting and unorthodox, rebellious and conformist to co-exist and come up with a version that knock the crowd off its feet and makes them think.
However, what Imitating The Dog have produced in their adaption of Joseph Conrad’s classic but ultimately flawed by modern standards and issues that surround the narrative, Heart of Darkness is to unfold the story as if looking through a three way mirror, disseminating and arguing the use of the past, bringing the narrative up to date and then inversing it. By showing that the racism of Europe, especially to Africa and the East, still persists to the point which by creating an alternative future for the continent after World War Two the audience is immersed into a world where we ourselves have become victims to our greed, the pull of unchecked capitalism has choked those in the northern lands and what is left is death, disease, horror; a reality check to how Europeans cut swathes through the lands of Africa and left it raped and millions dead at our hands.
Dominating and sincere, Heart of Darkness is a profoundly captivating piece of theatre, unafraid to point out that the darkness is not where most would place it, that it dwells in each of us, that our opinions are at times so entrenched that they betray our hidden souls. Remarkable staging, a cast that delivers something extraordinary, it is another reminder that nothing is forever and that anything can, and should be, changed for the better.
Ian D. Hall