MADC scrutinises the dark side of goodness, truth and beauty and theirinfluence on young minds in adaptation of Muriel Spark’s poignant novel

Theatre
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Blue Box, M Space, Msida

The power and influence which teachers can have over their students is not to be underestimated.

In a profession that is required to be both caring and academic, where teachers spend the greater part of the day with their charges, some teachers are more likely to be charismatic and eccentric than others and have their own methods of doing things which distinguish their perception of life in a veryreal manner.

Such a one is the protagonist of MADC’s production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – a play by Jay Presson Allen based on Muriel Spark’s book of the same name. Currently running at Blue Box performance space at M Space in Msida, this latest offering by MADC is a slick and well-rounded performance.

Set in 1930s Edinburgh, Julia Calvert’s Jean Brodie is an excellent portrayal of a woman who professes to be “in her prime” and takes her girls into her confidence, teaching them subjects off the curriculum, focusing on culture, art, music and the love lives of great writers as well as her own.

In her accomplished embodiment of Brodie, Calvert proved that a combination of preparation and strong direction on the part of Chiara Hyzler makes for a strong and captivating performance.

Her relationships with the other adults in the piece, beady-eyed headmistress Miss MacKay (Katherine Brown) and the two men in her love triangle, Teddy Lloyd (Jonathan Dunn) and Gordon Lowther (Stefan Farrugia), are fraught with tension and hostility, as she is confronted by an increasingly irate Miss MacKay, hell-bent on ousting her for her methods with the girls, and for the rumours flying about that she is sleeping with Lowther – which turn out to be true.

All four young women matched their older, more seasoned counterparts in terms of timing and dynamic, and made for a very cohesive performance

Ms Brown’s MacKay was a tad shrill at times but was appropriately waspish and brusque in her dealings with Miss Brodie.

Meanwhile, Farrugia’s Lowther was earnest in spite of a faltering Scottish accent and made the right sort of bumbling rather hen-pecked but likeable man who became Miss Brodie’s sexual surrogate for Dunn’s Teddy Lloyd – a man whom she did love but denied because of his marital status and religion. Dunn made an outspoken and strong Lloyd, obsessed with Brodie to the point of painting all his portraits to resemble her.

It is, however, Brodie’s relationships with her young and impressionable girls which are the more problematic because she is very much aware of the power she wields over them.

She chooses to use her influence to push the girls into becoming extensions of her unrealised desires and, in so doing, becomes a danger to them and to herself.

As Sr Helena (Ninette Micallef) tells the reporter interviewing her, Mr Perry (Michael Mangion) much later in the 1960s, it was “a Miss Jean Brodie in her prime” who was one of her major influences.

Sr Helena is the religious name taken by a former Brodie girl, Sandy Stranger, played with great sensitivity and maturity by Jasmine Farrugia.

Micallef showed reserve and poise in her clinical psychological approach to the retelling of the events which happened in the 1930s at Marcia Blaine School, while her youthful counterpart, Sandy, reflected her growing insight into Brodie’s true destructive nature.

Brodie’s influence was to make use of Jenny Grey’s (Taryn Mamo Cefai) “instinct” to her advantage with Lloyd – in a portrayal by Cefai which was graceful and had the right dose of coyness, while Sandie Von Brockdorff’s Monica Douglas was a natural performance delivered effortlessly.

The last girl making up the Brodie set, Mary MacGregor, was played by an earnest Kyra Lautier, whose interpretation was a touch too comical to carry the weight of the pathos and tragedy which characterise Mary’s life.

All four young women matched their older, more seasoned counterparts in terms of timing and dynamic, and made for a very cohesive performance.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is definitely a must-see not just for the warning that it gives us about the dangers of misplaced loyalty but also because it delivers on the promise it makes for a slick and enjoyable performance, blending dark humour with dire observations on the complexities of the human condition.

• The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is being staged on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Blue Box, M Space in Msida, at 8pm. For more information and to buy tickets, visit http://www.madc.com.mt .